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THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

THE
PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

BY

CLEMENTINA BLACK

AUTHOR OF "THE PRINCESS DESIRES," " AN AGITATOR," ETC

LONDON

C. ARTHUR PEARSON LIMITED

HENRIETTA STREET W.C
1899

•

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I

A Purple Parasol 7

CHAPTER II

Ladzinski's Explanation 15

CHAPTER III

The Empty Villa 24

CHAPTER IV

The Hand at the Carriage Window • . * 33

CHAPTER V

The Embassy to London 45

CHAPTER VI

The Arrow in the Air 60

CHAPTER VII

The Syndic to the Rescue 70

CHAPTER VIII

The Rescued Maiden .... 79

CHAPTER IX

Allison as Father Confessor 86

CHAPTER X

More Guests at the " Crown of Italy " . . 96

CHAPTER XI

Sunday in Saragosta 108

5

6 CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER XII

The Capture of Camilla 123

CHAPTER XIII

The Marchesa Serafina 136

CHAPTER XIV

The Suit of the Marquis 149

CHAPTER XV

The Beating of Wings in a Cage .... 164

CHAPTER XVI

The Embassy to Rome . .175

CHAPTER XVII

The Persistence of the Marquis .... 189

CHAPTER XVIII

Constitutional Methods 206

CHAPTER XIX

Unconstitutional Methods 215

CHAPTER XX

The Convent at Arano 226

CHAPTER XXI

The Visitation of Benivieni . . . .235

CHAPTER XXII

The Meeting of the Cousins 244

CHAPTER XXIII

Guendolen Learns her own Mind . . . .254

CHAPTER XXIV

The Cage Door Open 262

CHAPTER XXV

"Journeys End " 272

■v

{<

I

A PURPLE PARASOL

NOT at all," said a clear female voice ;
" not at all."

The English words, rising unexpectedly
from the lower street of an old foreign town,
struck the ear of the English tourist lounging
in the square above. He stepped to the low
wall that bounded the square, and looked down
as from a gallery into the irregular street. The
young lady was standing on a lower step of the
steep intervening stairway. Her dress was
light-coloured ; in her hand was a furled para-
sol ; the tints of her golden-red hair, her spark-
lingly blue eyes and delicately fresh, variable
complexion were vivid under the gay morning
sun.

Before her, at the foot of the steps, stood the
person to whom her words had been addressed
— a man, the very attitude of whose shoulders
proclaimed a nationality other than hers. Some-
thing else, some touch of awkwardness, some

8 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

subtle testimony, perhaps, of dress, though the
man's clothes were neither poor nor showy,
marked him to the observer's eye as divided
from her not only by race but by status.
Already the spectator found his interest en-
gaged on the young lady's side. A second
elbow planted itself on the parapet ; from this
private box he looked down with increasing
eagerness upon the little drama.

The man and the girl remained another
moment or two face to face without speaking.
Their silence, however, was not passive, but
held as much challenge and parry as any clash
of hard words. The man seeming, at last, by
a shrug of the shoulders and an impatient
movement of the hands, to acknowledge him-
self defeated, the young lady turned serenely
from him, and slowly continued her ascent.
The drama was over, and the spectator, with-
drawing a little regretfully, could but watch the
departure from the stage of the principal per-
former. She crossed the square at a good
pace, and took the upward path to the hills
behind the town, where indeed the diminishing
dome of her shot-silk parasol was presently
discernible against the grey of the hill-side.

The Englishman, on his part, recalling cer-
tain frescoes commemorated by his guide-book,
turned into the old church, where a lingering

A PURPLE PARASOL 9

scent of stale incense floated in the cool dark-
ness. The frescoes were in one of the many
accessory chapels, and he wandered round, in-
specting one after another, in all the ease of
absolute solitude.

Suddenly he became aware that his solitude
was not absolute — a man stood motionless
before one of the recessed archways. The
Englishman, unwilling to disturb a possible
worshipper, paused and reversed his circuit.
Glancing across the church, he saw the stranger
still in the same attitude, and apparently . un-
aware of a second presence. Light fell from an
upper window on the dark uncovered head, and
showed a few white hairs ; the face, bent for-
ward a little, could not be distinguished, but
the whole person, and even the way of holding
an ordinary modern hat, had the patrician air.
Altogether, the living figure was more pic-
turesque, and made a greater appeal to the
imagination than did- the thirteenth-century
frescoes of the pious Bernardino da Saragosta,
which, being of a mouldy and greenish com-
plexion and but ill-lighted, loomed through
the twilight like pale ghosts of the martyrs
whom they represented.

A sudden strip of light fell across the tiled
floor, and was quenched again. The heavy,
silently swinging door had been pushed open

io THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

to admit a third person, and the Englishman,
turning from the dismal frescoes, beheld the
man who had stood in the lower street, and
whose expostulation had been disregarded by
a charming young lady.

Approaching the gentleman before the chapel
of St. Ursula, the new-comer addressed him in
low, respectful tones ; and the attention of the
Englishman departed once for all from the
works of Bernardino. The words spoken
being at this distance quite inaudible, his con-
science, which would have forbidden him to
listen, permitted him to look. He saw the
hearer throw out his hands with a slight motion,
that might perhaps indicate vexation ; then he
saw the two walk leisurely together out of the
church, and in that progress he distinguished
clearly the face of the elder, and found him to
be a man of perhaps five-and- forty, endowed
with an admirable and classic line of profile,
and a pair of fine dark eyes.

The door fell softly back, and the English-
man was left alone in the cool, dim church.
Very few minutes sufficed for its further in-
spection, and he too emerged into the radiant
sunlight The men were not visible, nor was
the girl. His mind went fluttering after her,
and the grey hill-side took on a sudden attrac-
tive charm. Saragosta, it now appeared, was a

A PURPLE PARASOL n

dull hole, and the thing most to be desired was
the society of the agreeable Polish artist with
whom he had for some days past been travel-
ling, and who had, a couple of hours earlier,
gone over, by way of the hills, to the telegraph
office at Dalarocca. So the Englishman went
out of the square as the young lady had done,
by the upper end, and began to climb the steep
track upon which he had last beheld her.

Possibly he was not himself aware how keen
and constant was the look-out which he kept
for a purple and amber shot parasol. No
parasol, however, hove in sight. He mounted
and mounted ; the sun looked down upon him
with an increasing intensity that seemed posi-
tively malignant. For the first three-quarters
of an hour or so, he met no person and saw no
habitation. The desolate hill-side lay grey and.
empty under the insistent sun. But suddenly,
in a diminutive crater, he came upon a white-
walled building — half farm, half fortress. Scat-
tered cypresses and olive-trees fringed the en-
closure, and threw round their own feet a fine
black lace pattern of shadow. Against the
north wall, however, lay a broad band of shade,
cool, dark, and inviting as water. Here, with a
luxurious sense of relaxation, the Englishman
let himself sink upon the dry, thin herbage.

A low-growing olive was before him, and

12 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

through its veil he beheld the margin of the
hollow, sharp against the blue unwinking sky.
Neither sight nor sound of life came from the
dwelling ; the distant cry of a grasshopper
seemed rather to emphasize than to break the
stillness. Presently the wanderers eyelids fell,
his mind fluttered idly away, and he lay dream-
ing, but not, as he afterwards averred, quite
asleep.

A sound startled him into wakefulness, and
his opening eyes looked into the purple con-
cavity of a silken parasol. He lay quite still,
staring.

" Camilla ! " said a man's voice.

The k tones were deep and full of emotion,
and the value given to each separated " 1 " be-
tokened a tongue of exacter articulation than
the English. Yet the next words were English,
and the sound of them fell upon the listener's
ear like an awakening shock of cold water.
For this was the voice of Ladzinski, his travel-
ling companion.

"Ah, trust me; tell me why you left
London, and how you come to be here.
Surely you know "

But here the eavesdropper, now thoroughly
aroused, became alive to the impossibility of
his situation. He sprang up, and the parasol,
which had been dropped stem downward among

A PURPLE PARASOL 13

the olive branches, became dislodged, and,
rolling leisurely upon the earth, presented its
under surface to the sky. The Englishman,
as he emerged from his retreat, perceived why
it had been dropped : the two hands of the
lady were in those of Ladzinski.

The four hands fell apart ; the four eyes
gazed upon him blankly; he saw the quick
rise and fall of the girl's bosom, the growing
anger in the eyes of the man.

" I beg your pardon," the intruder began a
little stammeringly ; " I was lying there half
asleep. I had no notion that any one was near."

Ladzinski was silent, wrestling visibly with
his own turbulent agitation. The gaze of the
girl was not merely that of a person startled ;
its steadiness held something of scrutiny, of
balance, something almost of appeal. "Who
are you ? May you be trusted ? " those blue
eyes appeared to ask.

The Englishman, with a vague sense 01
loyalty to Ladzinski, shut out from his own
eyes any gleam of response; and his virtue
was repaid to him in a vague pang of dis-
loyalty to Camilla. As neither of them spoke,
he began to retreat in good order, his pace
neither hasty nor reluctant

Then Ladzinski, mastering himself, called
out, "Allison, stop!"

i 4 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

The other stopped and wheeled half round.

"This meeting is a secret— the profoundest
secret ! "

" Certainly," Allison answered promptly.

No other word being immediately spoken,
he continued his retreat, his mind engaged in
wondering whether the appeal in Camilla's
eyes had been merely the same as that on
Ladzinski's lips. He thought not.

II

LADZINSKI'S EXPLANATION

AN hour and a half later, Allison sat writing
letters behind the half-closed shutters of
an upper room in Saragosta's one hotel. Be-
fore the window lay a white and dusty expanse,
chequered sharply with black patches of shade.
It was empty, for the natives of Saragosta have
not the habit of walking abroad in the hot hours
of the afternoon. From an old tower, lower
down, a clock chimed its slow repeated three.
Allison's attention wandered from the sister in
England to whom he was writing. Where
now, he wondered, was Camilla, and who was
Camilla ? On his return to the hotel he had at
once looked into the visitors' book for a sur-
name to fit her ; but the visitors' book supplied
no information : the only recent names were
his own and Ladzinski's. The lady, therefore,
had to retain in his thoughts the name of Cam-
illa; and it would appear that she occupied
them a good deal, since he had not yet com-
pleted a second letter when the clock from the
tower tolled out its drowsy four,

is

1 6 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

The square was no longer deserted ; a trio of
urchins played noisily to and fro ; a couple of
women stood in doorways, their fingers busy
with straw plaiting, their eyes roaming hither
and thither. Presently another figure came
into view ; Ladzinski, swinging an ostentatious
sketch-book, strode swiftly across the square.
Allison, looking down at him, felt the strangest
mixture of liking, admiration, and displeasure.
This Pole, indeed, was one of the persons who
may be regarded with love or with hatred, or
with alternations of the two, but hardly with
indifference. The adjective "elegant" applied
to a man carries with it a note of depreciation,
yet elegance was the quality which struck you
in looking at Ladzinski, and struck you as
creating a singular and superior charm. There
can never have existed a human being more
remote from clumsiness ; every line of face and
form, every movement, every posture, was apt
and satisfying. To English eyes, indeed, a
bodily presence so lucidly expressive was al-
most alarming ; any pair of village gossips in
Britain would have pronounced it incompatible
with long life, and no discreet British parent
would have approved it in a prospective son-
in-law.

He came directly to the room where Allison
was sitting, and pushing wide the now unneces-

LADZINSKI'S EXPLANATION 17

sary shutter, admitted the clear daylight. The
other, looking up, met a calm and friendly
smile, which was immediately and involuntarily
reflected in his own face. All his unreasoned
liking for Ladzinski surged up warm above an
unsounded depth of personal depression.

" I think you are my friend," Ladzinski said,
looking down at him.

" I am," the Englishman answered earnestly.
The words were absolutely sincere ; yet in the
background of his mind was a sensation of
their costing him some appreciable sacrifice.

Ladzinski dropped his sketch-book upon the
table and himself into a chair, cast a quick look
right and left across the wide empty room, and
shifted his chair to command the view from the
window.

"It was in Paris that I knew her first," he
began. " She was a little girl, and her mother
was a widow — Madame Veneroni — an Ameri-
can. Their home was in London. There was
an Italian — Menosotti — who was always follow-
ing the widow. They went away, and she
married him in England. I met them again at
Cannes one winter. Miss Veneroni was nearly
eighteen then. Menosotti was not often with
them ; I think his wife was frightened of him ;
she was a poor timid creature. As for me, I
hated him — I do hate him"; his voice slackened

B

1 8 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

pace a little. Allison had to fill in the gaps of
the narration.

" Of course, I soon went to London, but I
hardly saw her. The mother was ill. A
cousin came, an Englishman called Bush.
Then Madame Veneroni died, and afterwards
the Bushes took her with them into the country.
I saw Mrs. Bush, and she made me promise to
leave Camilla alone for a year. She wrote to
me — Mrs. Bush — three times, and she assured
me there was no other lover. Then at the end
of the year they came back to London — nearly
three weeks ago. I went to her house. She
was out with the cousin. Next day she wasn't
there, but I saw Mrs. Bush. She was terribly
agitated ; she begged me to tell her if I knew
anything of Camilla. She had disappeared,
leaving a little letter to say that she had gone
of her own will, that she was doing nothing
wrong, and was in no danger, but that she
might not be able to write during her absence/'

The eyes of Allison had grown rounder and
rounder as he listened.

" Her maid had a notion that she had gone |

out to Italy to her father's family. Acting on
that, Mrs. Bush and I made inquiries, and
found that a lady who might be she had crossed
to Calais. I came upon her track in Paris.
There a man met her, and went on with hen

LADZINSKI'S EXPLANATION 19

I followed ; I lost them once or twice. They
have been here for nearly a week, staying at
the Villa Sans Souci. I managed to get a
letter to her yesterday, asking her to meet me
where she did meet me."

Allison opened his mouth to put a question,
and closed it again in silence; there was so
much more which he felt necessary to complete
the story. Then, remembering that it was in
his own power to make a contribution, he de-
tailed the parting of Camilla on the steps from
the man of doubtful status, and the subsequent
interview in the church between the same man
and an unknown gentleman. Lad zinski listened
with attention, but remained silent. A hasty
mental survey reinforced Allison's conviction
that before committing himself he must have
fuller knowledge.

" You think," he began, " that perhaps I may
be of help to you in this ; that is why you tell
me?"

" Yes, assuredly."

" But you have not told me enough to make
me sure whether I ought to help you."

Ladzinski looked up sharply.

" May I ask two or three questions ? "

" Ask."

" Is Miss Veneroni — I mean, does Miss Vene-
roni at all — at all return your feeling for her ? "

I

20 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

The colour shot into the others face and
died away again.

" I fear not, at present," he answered with
an effort " But she has an old friendship and
regard for me. There seems to be a sort of
barrier. She does, not tell me why she came."

" She doesn't want help from you ? "

Ladzinski shook his head.

" Then what is there to do ? "

" I don't know what to do," the other cried,
with a gesture of despair. " She seems to be
under a spell."

" Is she of age?"

"No."

" Who are her guardians ? "

" I suppose her cousins in England."

" You don't know for certain whether her
parents appointed any?"

Once more Ladzinski shook his head.

"And she is not an English subject — at
least, I suppose not, if her father was an Italian.
Is she rich ? "

" I believe so ; I am sure her mother was,
and I think the wealth came from her father ;
so I should think it could not go to Menosotti."

" Then it would be to his interest to keep
hold of her, and to the interest of her father's
relations, if any, to get hold of her. They, by
the way, are probably her legal guardians."

i
s

i

LADZINSKI'S EXPLANATION 21

Ladzinski nodded gravely.

" Was the man I saw with her this morning
the step-father ? "

Ladzinski caught up his sketch-book, drew a
few hasty lines, and tearing off a strip of paper,
passed it to his companion. " That's Meno-
sotti," said he.

Allison contemplated the little drawing.
" That is not the man I saw with her, nor the
man in the church either."

Ladzinski's pencil was busy once more, and
once more he handed over a slip of paper.

" Yes, yes, that's the man I saw."

" That is the man who has been travelling
with her. I don't know who he is."

" She did not seem very friendly with him
this morning," Allison remarked, frowning over
the drawing. The thought behind his words
was that this was hardly a lover with whom a
charming girl could be induced to elope. He
handed back the second portrait, but retained
the first. "It may be useful," he observed,
" for me to have this."

He bestowed it in a pocket-book, and leaned
back silent, with a face of grave cogitation.

" What we want here," he declared at last,
" is a good Italian lawyer, or else, and better
still, a trustworthy, middle-aged Italian lady.
Do you know either one or the other ? "

22 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" There is Madame Perivier," Ladzinski re-
plied slowly. "She is a Frenchwoman, but
she has lived in Rome longer than we have
been alive. She knew the Veneronis in Paris.
I think she knew something of Menosotti too.
There is no kinder or cleverer woman alive,
and she knows Italy as I know the Luxem-
bourg Gardens."

" The very person ; and would she come, do
you think ? "

" She might. Of course she isn't in Rome
at this time of year. She is probably at her
daughter's, close to Lucca."

" You'll write to her to-night, won't you ? "

"Yes. I have told Ca — I have told Miss
Veneroni that I am coming to call on her at
the Villa Sans Souci to-morrow afternoon.
She said she would be glad to see me, and that
I might bring you."

"It is clear, then," said Allison, " that she is
quite at liberty. It is a strange tale."

" A very strange tale," echoed Ladzinski, and
he would probably have added more had not a
dingy waiter, appearing at this juncture and
introducing an atmosphere of garlic, announced,
in a fine Italian accent, that " ces messieurs"
were served.

The meal was spread below, on an island of
table in an ocean of dining-room, and two

LADZINSKI'S EXPLANATION 23

gentlemen of Saragosta who ate habitually at
the Hotel Corona cT Italia were already seated.
One of these was the local doctor, the other an
official of functions not yet very clearly appre-
hended. They received the foreigners with
amicable greetings, and resuming the conversa-
tion precisely where it had been left on the
previous evening, inquired whether the frescoes
of Bernardino had yet been inspected.

Allison answered in terms as civil as possible
to the memory of Saragosta's one distinguished
citizen, and proceeded to ask questions about
the lonely farm on the hill-side. It belonged,
they told him, to a Roman count, by whom it
had been inherited from the last daughter of an
ancient local family. The tenants, quiet, elderly
people, were too strenuously industrious for
sociability, and were seldom seen beyond their
own confines.

" They are, however, well-behaved persons,"
Signor Sacchetti, the official, condescendingly
concluded, while the doctor added, " They
would, no doubt, be delighted that Monsieur
should make a picture of their dwelling."

Ladzinski made a polite, evasive reply. He
was not perhaps unwilling to have his goings
and comings credited with motives solely artis-
tic. Of the English-speaking young lady, no
word was uttered by any of the party.

Ill

THE EMPTY VILLA

ALLISON and Ladzinski stood before the
door of the Villa Sans Souci and awaited
some result of their repeated knocking. A good
many minutes passed before a promising sound
was heard of bolts withdrawn ; the door was at
last partially opened, and in the narrow space
appeared an old woman with a broom. Lad-
zinski asked for the Signorina Veneroni. She
shook her head. The young man persisted,
gently, firmly, with all the persuasiveness of
his voice, his smile, and his manner. But the
woman, although she relaxed visibly under
these influences, maintained her position.
There was no young lady, she declared, at the
villa. Allison, calling up his best Italian, in-
terposed a question : " Was it this morning
that she left, or last night ? "

" Last night," replied the old woman.

Further questions drew the information that
there had been lodgers in the house for five
days, and that they had departed rather

24

THE EMPTY VILLA 25

suddenly the evening before. She did not
know where they had gone — that was no con-
cern of hers — but she knew the driver of the
carriage which had taken them, one Girolamo,
living three steps away.

The visitors turned gravely from the door
of the villa.

11 To Girolamo, I presume," said Allison.

Ladzinski nodded silently. That sensitive
face of his was not only pale but actually drawn
and furrowed with anxiety.

The abode of Girolamo was an old stone
house marked with lines of age like wrinkles,
and enclosing odours peculiarly ancient and
concentrated. Girolamo himself sat in his
doorway, engaged in the careful and precise
shaving of a poodle. His simple tale was soon
told. He had on the previous day conveyed
to the station at Dalarocca the gentleman from
the Villa Sans Souci and the young lady his
sister (at this designation the eyes of each
listener sought the other). The young lady —
this in reply to specific questions — seemed per-
haps a little tired ; she had spoken little. The
two travellers having heard this narration, stood
for perhaps a minute before the narrator, silent.

" Dalarocca seems to be the next step," re-
marked Allison, and Ladzinski assenting, they
saw no better plan than to bid Girolamo bring

26 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

his conveyance in half an hours time to the
hotel.

The clock in the tower was once more strik-
ing four as they crossed the square. Ladzinski
winced at the sound.

" They have had twenty- two hours' start,"
said he. " They might be half across Europe
before we could trace them."

It seemed to be agreed without any words
that pursuit was to be made, and that Allison
was to share it. This tacit agreement struck
him afterwards as odd, but at the moment it
was the merest matter of course.

The shadows were already growing longer
in the modernised streets of Dalarocca when
they alighted at the railway station. It had
been determined that Allison, who could not
possibly be recognised as a former friend of
Miss Veneroni, should undertake the part of in-
quirer. After having catechised the ticket-clerk
and porters, he returned eagerly to his com-
panion and announced that two persons corre-
sponding in appearance with those they sought
had taken train, the evening before, for Padua.

"And now," he concluded, "had we better
both go on to Padua ? You see, there may be
letters at Saragosta to-morrow. There's your
friend, Madame What's-her-name ? — and Miss
Veneroni might write to you."

THE EMPTY VILLA 27

At this suggestion Ladzinski shook his head
despondently, but he agreed that it might be
wiser to divide forces, and it needed little dis-
cussion to decide that the better speaker of
Italian should go forward, while the compara-
tively inarticulate Allison remained at Sara-
gosta.

" You will open Madame's letter, of course,"
said Ladzinski.

" And you will wire to me where I am to
send any other."

"Yes," — he paused, hesitated, and with a
visible effort conquered his reluctance, — "and
the other, if there should be one, you had
better open that too."

Allison too hesitated, and then replied
simply, " Very well."

The next train to Padua would go, it ap-
peared, in three-quarters of an hour.

11 And so good-bye," said the artist, holding
out his hand.

But Allison refused to accept the farewell.

11 Nothing of the kind," said he stoutly. " I
am not going to be shaken to pieces a second
time in that gig of Girolamo's. And besides,
I am hungry. He shall take back my traps
and tell them to expect me, and in the mean-
time you and I will have some dinner."

Ladzinski with a faint smile shook his head :

28 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

a mute answer which indicated not refusal but
comprehension. He recognised perfectly that
Allison, though "perhaps genuinely hungry and
genuinely averse to renew his experience of the
" &g" was staying primarily for none of these
reasons, but to keep him company.

They dined, talking of casual topics, and
parted without any display of feeling. But in
the very moment of parting Allison received
from the midst of a warm look of liking a
sudden sensation as if a curtain lifted and gave
him a glimpse of tragedy ahead. He looked
after the retreating train with a vague, un-
formulated terror and with a clinging of the
heart to the man who was being borne away.

On his table, when he entered the big upper
room next morning, Allison beheld two letters.
He hurried forward, full of trembling anticipa-
tion. One was for himself — a square English
envelope with a square English writing — his
sister's. The other was for Ladzinski, and he
knew even before he perceived the Lucca post-
mark that this thin, long envelope and this long
angular writing were not Camilla's but Madame
Perivier's. He opened first the letter which
was not addressed to himself. Its thin and
highly polished surface presented but few
words, and of those few none indicated place
or date.

THE EMPTY VILLA 29

" Meet me, mon ami, on Thursday at half-
past three, at the station at Dalarocca. —
E. P."

Allison contemplated this command with
stupefaction. Thursday was to-morrow. To
telegraph to a lady whose only known address
was " near Lucca " appeared impossible ; and
the address of Ladzinski was for the moment
more uncertain still. Clearly it would devolve
upon himself to meet this imperative lady and
to entertain her as best he could. His heart
sank, and for some moments he became entirely
oblivious of the second letter which lay await-
ing his attention. When by-and-by he did
open it, the contrast provoked a smile. Guen-
dolen's communication was duly headed with
place and date, it opened with an orderly " My
dear Laurence," and closed with her own name
at length. But between this opening and this
close lay a manuscript as much greater in
volume as clearer in caligraphy than Madame
Perivier's. Allison's brow wrinkled as he
read ; here were more demands upon him.
Guendolen's sojourn with an old school-fellow
was not, it appeared, turning out to her satis-
faction. She wished he were in England ; had
written to Aunt Lucy, but doubted whether
Aunt Lucy could receive her. " If you are not
very busy with your cathedrals and your palaces,

30 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

could not you come home?" she wrote, "or
could not I come out to you ? "

" But how can I ? " Allison inquired of the
surrounding air.

He looked from letter to letter, and felt that
women and the postal system were great com-
plicators of existence. He also felt that his
own recent courses and present position would
be a little difficult of explanation to Guendolen.
By profession this young man was an architect,
but a comfortable income permitting him to
pursue his studies at leisure, he was now jour-
neying with a note-book through northern Italy
instead of sitting in a London office to wait for
clients. He resolved to write and exhort
Guendolen to patience. Meanwhile, since
Madame Perivier would have to be met, and
since she could hardly be expected to walk
from Dalarocca, it would be as well to bespeak
Girolamo In visiting Girolamo it was natural
to survey the exterior of the Villa Sans Souci,
which stood directly opposite.

" The villa is still empty ? " he presently re-
marked in his laborious Italian.

" There is the old Filomena," Girolamo
gently corrected him.

" She is alone ? "

" She is alone."

The Englishman looked wistfully at the

THE EMPTY VILLA 31

closed door in the villa's garden wall, then he
walked slowly round the house and regarded
it from the north and from the south. Finally
he was rewarded by the emergence of Filomena
with a basket He at once walked towards
her, greeted her politely, and began : " If the
villa is still to let, may I look at the rooms ?
There is a lady coming to-morrow to Sara-
gosta ; she may perhaps prefer not to stay at
the hotel/'

The dark eyes of Filomena took stock of
him ; he seemed to feel them numbering the
coins in his pocket. She drew from the bottom
of her basket a key abdut as long as her fore-
arm and turned back to the house. They
crossed a melancholy garden, containing nearly
as much stone- work as vegetation, and entered
a wide hall.

Measured by an Italian standard, the rooms
of the Villa Sans Souci were not particu-
larly large ; none of them would have con-
tained more than two of the flats assigned in
London to working class families. From the
sprawling, crudely coloured arabesques of the
walls the eyes sank with relief to the mellow
red of the tiled floors. The furniture was
sparse and somewhat austere. Upon one hearth
were still lying the soft grey ashes of a wood
fire ; he wondered whether Camilla had warmed

32 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

herself at that fire. A flake of burnt paper
was discernible, brown and crisp among the
grey dust ; he wondered whether she had
burned it. In no other room was there any
other imaginable trace of her. Filomena stood
patiently waiting till the visitor should speak.
Allison at last, chasing away the dim feeling of
something here to be discovered, asked her
about the terms and the landlord, and follow-
ing her out into the sunshine, left her turning
the huge key in the garden door.

IV

THE HAND AT THE CARRIAGE

WINDOW

THE sun was still shining when, in the
afternoon, Girolamo's vehicle went jolting
along the road to Dalarocca. The grey-white
track ascended between grey-white walls; the
sharp outlines, the clear sober colouring, ex-
traordinarily lucid, but without glow, had the
peculiar austerity that belongs to North Italian
landscape. The clear light air was still, and no
birds sang.

Allison, meditating, like a true Englishman,
upon climate, said to himself that anywhere
else, if the air were as hot as this, it would also
be sultry ; and if it were as fresh, there would
be wind. This combination of the light and
the still was physically delicious and invigorat-
ing ; yet the resulting mood inclined rather to
melancholy than to exhilaration. Perhaps it
was some old remnant of Puritan habit which
rendered the British conscience dissatisfied

33 r

34 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

under inaction, and imparted to this country-
side an air of emptiness and desolation. Think-
ing idly thus and noting idly the dark spears
of cypress above the line of wall, he perceived
a carriage approaching — a covered, closed
carriage, large, dingy, and jingling. He had
imbibed already enough of village feeling to
look with curiosity upon the stranger and
traveller ; and when the two vehicles had
crossed, he turned his head and looked back.
Suddenly from the window of the carriage a
white handkerchief fluttered — a bare white
hand, the cuff of a biscuit- coloured sleeve —
Camilla.

In a moment he had stopped Girolamo, had j

leapt out, and was expounding to that unruffled j

driver the duty of meeting and bringing home i

an unknown French lady to be identified by
her mention of Ladzinski's name. This expla-
nation had occupied, in spite of his utmost
haste, some two or three minutes. When he
turned to pursue the carriage it was already
out of sight. He ran eagerly down the road ;
presently, at a turning, he could see before him
a stretch of about half a mile. There was no
carriage upon the road. He stood amazed, be-
wildered. There were arched doorways, indeed,
in some of the high walls, but these were not
of width to admit a carriage. He ran on again

THE HAND AT THE WINDOW 35

at his utmost speed, a new length of roadway
opening at every stride. The road remained
absolutely empty. Again he stood still and
began to look for wheel-marks in the shallow
dust at his feet. He saw but one clear pair of
lines, and these not surely wide enough to be-
long to the carriage ; these must doubtless be
due to Girolamo's wheels. He walked thus
slowly once more in the direction of Dalarocca,
his head bent, his eyes following the double
wheel-line. All at once he perceived a second
track, wider than the first, entering the road
with a curve from the right and continuing
towards Dalarocca. Here, on the right, was
a by-way, narrower than the road ; he followed
it, breathless. The ground was white and hard,
sprinkled with blades of greyish grass, and bare
of dust. No wheel-marks showed. Eagerly
Allison hurried along this turning, only to find
himself presently on the open hillside, a net-
work of ill-defined footpaths at his feet, no
house, no vehicle, no person within sight.
Hastily he ascended the hill that rose imme-
diately before him, grey, bare, and rounded,
like all the others ; arrived at the crown, he
beheld only gently curving hollows rising to
grey mounds again, all softly undulating in
exquisite gradations of light and shadow. He
mounted another summit and another; the

36 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

landscape was always the same, and presently
he had lost all notion of direction.

Now he began to think of Madame Perivier,
and to wonder how he should return to Sara-
gosta. Choosing the first fairly well-marked
path, he determined to persevere in it until he
should meet some landmark. He persevered,
and landmarks remained obstinately wanting.

At last, however, he heard — oh, welcome
sound! — the voice of the Saragosta clock
speaking faintly across the hills to the right.
Deserting his path, he aimed a course towards
it, and was. rewarded, about a quarter of an
hour later, by coming to that very by-path into
which the carriage- track had led him. He
walked along it quickly, and, when he was about
midway, remarked a small folded white paper
lying at the foot of one wall. He did not really
suppose it to be a token from Camilla, but he
stooped and picked it up. His heart gave a
leap. Pricked with a pin upon the paper was
a series of uneven letters spelling the English
words : "Tell S. L. keep address hotel."

Allison stood between the blank walls, staring
at this message, eager, hopeful, full of a longing
to devote himself wholly to the sender's service.
Mechanically he walked on to the high road ;
and there, calling his thoughts together, con-
sulted his watch, considered the pace of Giro-

THE HAND AT THE WINDOW 37

lamo's steed, and concluding that Mme. Peri-
vier could hardly yet have reached this spot,
leaned his shoulders against the wall and
waited.

The justice of his conclusion was presently
evinced. The lean and leisurely beast of
Girolamo advanced into view, and on the seat
behind it sat a lady. Allison, who had been
accustomed to suppose that skill and success
in the art of dress came by nature to every
Frenchwoman, was a good deal amazed at her
appearance. Her gown and mantle, both of
good material, and possibly even of good cut,
had evidently been indued without reference to
a mirror, and bore no consistent relation to the
person within them. Like her nondescript
bonnet they were black, and of the peculiar
dinginess possible only to that hue. And yet
with her odd figure, her huddled garments, and
her bonnet on one ear, Mme. Peri vier had the
air of an empress. Her fine and noble coun-
tenance breathed calm command ; the light
clasp of her brown hands would have been
completed appropriately by a sceptre. She sat
the seat of Girolamo's chaise like a throne.

Allison advanced, lifting his hat ; Girolamo
paused; and the raised eyebrows of the lady
perceptibly inquired, " Who are you ? "

" M. Ladzinski," the Englishman began in

38 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

his best French, " is away from Saragosta. I
was his fellow-traveller, and, with your per-
mission, will do my best to replace him for a
day or two until he returns."

The expressive eyebrows of Madame Peri-
vier remained exalted ; she bowed politely
without speaking, and Allison ascended apolo-
getically to the seat at her side.

" The fact," he proceeded, " is that the very
day after he wrote to you, Ladzinski found that
Miss Veneroni had gone away, and he went
after her."

" Where is he ? " Madame Perivier demanded,
sitting up with sudden alacrity and with all the
appearance of intending immediate chase.

Her voice, despite its somewhat alarming
note of command, was singularly mellow and
agreeable.

" I don't know ; he has not written."

" But then " — she reflected for a moment,
and slowly opened upon him her large, dark
eyes — " it was you who read my letter ? "

He admitted it.

" But this," said Madame Perivier, with the
first symptoms of a smile, " is very com-
promising."

Their eyes met, and Allison allowed expres-
sion to the amusement that underlay his alarm
Madame Perivier, reading plainly both influ-

THE HAND AT THE WINDOW 39

ences, frankly laughed ; and at the laugh his
alarms took wing.

" And if Severyn Ladzinski does not write
or return ? " she asked.

" Then/' said Allison boldly, " you and I will
find Miss Veneroni without him."

Not until they were seated together in the
hotel drawing-room did he produce the scrap of
paper, and relate the adventure of the closed
carriage.

She heard him with profound attention and
uttered no immediate comment.

" A letter will come from her to the hotel,"
she presently declared.

" And we shall not know where to send it to
Ladzinski."

" There will be a letter from him to-morrow
morning," Madame pronounced with conviction.
"As for us, we must find out where those
roads over the hills lead. She was being taken
somewhere."

The young man at once produced and dis-
played a map, upon which, however, his com-
panion turned but a distant and indifferent eye.

" Maps," she remarked, " say nothing to me.
If you can understand it, pray tell me the
conclusion."

11 The conclusion," Allison announced, after
a little study, " seems to be that they may have

4 o THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

gone to Minolina or to Saltello, or may have
turned back to Dalarocca."

" The conclusion, in short," returned Madame
Perivier briskly, " is nothing. What houses
are there between here and Dalarocca ? "

" There is nothing but one farm, a lonely
sort of place, called Casello."

" You must go to-morrow and make inquiries
there."

" Why not this evening ? "

Madame Perivier smiled approvingly. " I
thought," she said, " that you would want your
dinner."

" So I do — or I shall ; but I want to find
Miss Veneroni."

Folding up his map, he arose alertly.

" Au revoir" said Madame Perivier gra-
ciously, and without further prelude he set
forth, meditating as he went on the strangeness
of his errand and of the lady who sent him
upon it.

Two hours later Allison was returning towards
the hotel of the Crown of Italy, his mind occu-
pied more immediately by his impending meal
than by any other topic. Madame Periviers
allusion to dinner led him to hope that her dis-
regard of clothes did not extend into the region
of food, and that although the regular hour was
over he would find a comfortable repast await-

THE HAND AT THE WINDOW 41

ing him. The doctor and the sindaco would of
course be gone home. He wondered, with a
momentary smile, what they had thought of
Madame Perivier.

He made straight for the dining-room, and
on its threshold stood transfixed. At the table,
with an air of having personally provided this
entertainment, sat Madame Perivier, presiding,
but not partaking, and on her right sat Lad-
zinski, who, on Allison's entrance, sprang up
with a cry of pleasure.

" And have you heard anything ? " he eagerly
asked.

" I saw the woman — a shrivelled, overworked
creature ; her answers were dry and short, but
quite clear. She had seen a carriage in the
distance. She did not know where it was
going. And you, have you found anything?"

Ladzinski shook his head, and dropped his
hand with an expressive gesture.

" Show me the paper — her paper," said he ;
and Allison gave him the ragged, pathetic scrap
that meant so much.

Madame Perivier, here intervening, com-
manded both to sit down and eat their dinners,
an occupation which naturally left the word
with her.

" Now," she said, when the waiter had de-
parted, " we require to be acquainted with many

\

42 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

things of which we are ignorant We want to
know the whereabouts of Menosotti — I have
the poorest opinion possible of Menosotti. We
want to know who is this man with whom she
has been seen and this other man to whom Mr.
Allison saw him speaking in the church. We
want to know who are Camilla's relations in
Italy, and in what manner her money is left to
her. Am I not right ? "

Her audience respectfully assented.

" Some part of this information can only be
obtained from England ; some part only in
Italy. Besides all this, we desire to follow and
discover her."

Ladzinski was heard to mutter, "Saltello,
Minolina," and something about the earliest
train.

Allison, on his part, began to remember
Guendolen's letter of the day before.

"You know the address of the English
cousins," Madame Perivier proceeded. " You
had better write to-night."

" How would it be " Allison began, and

there paused, realizing suddenly the pang it
would cost him to forego active participation
in this enterprise.

The eyes of Madame Perivier were, how-
ever, upon him, and he found himself compelled
to complete the sentence*

THE HAND AT THE WINDOW 43
if I were to go to England ? I got a

letter yesterday asking me to go back. Then,
if you like, I can see the cousins and the will,
and send you all particulars."

Ladzinski lifted a blank countenance.

11 You will go home — not to come back ? "
he said.

" No, no ; I will come back/' Allison re-
turned quickly. After all, he reminded himself,
Guendolen had suggested that she should come
here.

"That seems an excellent plan," said Madame
Perivier, after a moment.

Allison scarcely heard her; his eyes were
upon the face of his comrade, which, now that
the disguising animation of speech had died
out, showed plainly the traces of wearing
anxiety. Thin it had always been, but now
it was haggard, the ridge of the cheek-bone
prominent between a hollow above and a
hollow below, the whole profile brought to
an edge like a knife. That apprehension,
sudden and undefined, which Ladzinski often
awoke in him sprang up once more. Come
back ! Of course he would come back. Suffer-
ing such as this was not to be deserted.
In what way his own presence was to alleviate
the sufferings of Ladzinski was not very clear,
but the emotion of sympathy has no need of

44 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

sharp definitions. Then, Ladzinski looking up
and speaking, the appearance of suffering
dropped like a mask, and the worn-out friend
to be protected changed under Allison's eyes
into a leader to be followed. Perhaps the air
of romantic weariness had, after all, been
mainly hunger.

It was quite cheerfully that the Englishman
sought his vast, bare bedchamber, and there, by
the light of a three-beaked lamp, delightful to
the eye and detestable to the nose, packed into
his knapsack his belongings.

V
THE EMBASSY TO LONDON

ALLISON stepped from the train into the
Sunday morning inactivity of a London
terminus, and the hours of travel fell behind
him like the prolonged dream of a restless
night London was sunny, with a pale sunni-
iiess like sunshine and water, dusty and airless,
the place of the atmosphere being supplied by
something heavier which carried a slight flavour
of coal-smoke and stables, and which differed
from the air of Saragosta as rain-water differs
from Apollinaris. But this young Briton,
breathing in with it a sense of home, smiled
and knew a sudden exhilaration. He sprang
gaily into a hansom, and compared that con-
veyance, greatly to its advantage, with Giro-
lamo's. At the hotel, presently, it was a new
delight to behold on his breakfast table an
absolutely contemporary English newspaper.
Resisting the temptation to linger over its
advertisements, he was, soon after ten o'clock,
on his way to catechise the cousin of Camilla.

45

46 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

This lady lived, it appeared from the address
on Ladzinski's letter, in Eglinton Gardens,
Bayswater. The house, when he arrived
before it, presented a desolate, half-shut-up
aspect. Mrs. Bush, he felt sure, would prove
to be absent. But, no ; Mrs. Bush was at
home, and he was ushered without delay into
the presence of an eminently British middle-
aged lady, whose flaxen hair and somewhat
florid complexion he scrutinised in vain for
any resemblance to the young lady of Sara-
gosta.

" I have come," he began, "from Italy, from
M. Ladzinski" — the lady clasped her hands
together — "and here is a letter from him."

She took the letter, looked it through, and
smiled up a little anxiously at her visitor.

" He tells you, I think, how I came to learn,
by accident, something of the circumstances. ,,

Mrs. Bush made a little motion of assent.

" And so, as I had other reasons for coming
to England, and as I am going out again very
shortly, Ladzinski thought it would save time
and correspondence if you would let me ask
you about two or three points."

" Certainly," said Mrs. Bush.

Allison laid before her his friend's pencil-
drawing of the man who had been seen with
Camilla.

>

THE EMBASSY TO LONDON 47

" Do you, in the first place, know that per-
son ? "

" I never saw him in my life," was the answer.

Her speech, now that he heard more of
it than a word at a time, had a faint heredi-
tary American accent.

" Secondly," the young man proceeded,
"has Miss Veneroni relations in Italy?"

" Not that I know of ; but I don't really
know. I don't think I ever heard anything
of Mr. Veneroni's family.'

" Did you know him ?

" Oh, yes ; I was my aunt's bridesmaid. He
was rather a melancholy man, but very kind.
He was a — a refugee," said Mrs. Bush, a
little reluctantly.

" Then he probably was poor ? "

"Oh, no — quite the contrary. He was a
Greek merchant, a partner in — I forget the
name of the firm — but a very well-known
house. Mr. Bush would know."

" You don't happen to know whether he was
naturalised ? "

" I don't know at all."

" Your aunt was an American, I think ? "

" Yes ; she was my mother's half-sister, much
younger ; her father left her quite poor, and
she came over to stay with my mother. She
was very pretty — very pretty indeed, but she

48 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

wasn't — she hadn't very much judgment, I
think ; I am afraid she did not make her first
husband very happy."

" And when he died, was his property left to
her absolutely or only a life interest ? "

" I can't say. I don't think I ever heard.
But I think my husband was a trustee or an
executor or something."

"If you can tell me when Mr. Veneroni died,
I will look up the will."

Mrs. Bush, after sifting her memory and
bringing the event into relation with a general
ladder of family history, arrived at an approxi-
mate date.

Inquiries as to the whereabouts of Menosotti
came next. Of him Mrs. Bush knew and evi-
dently desired to know nothing. The notion
of his step-daughter's being with him or being
influenced by him, she scouted.

" Camilla," she declared, " always hated him.
I dont believe she has seen him or spoken to
him since her mother's death."

Allison stood for a moment reviewing the
harvest of these answers and considering the
next step. Outside a slow church bell began
to chime.

" Have you any portrait of Mr. Veneroni
that you could lend me?" he asked at last
<c That might be useful in case of having to

THE EMBASSY TO LONDON 49

look up his relations ; and the address of his
partners— they might know something of his
family."

Mrs. Bush replied that she would write to
her husband for the address ; that she would
see if she could find a photograph in Camilla's
album ; and that there was a portrait in the
dining-room which he might like to see. He
followed her thither, and was left face to face
with the portrait of a man of perhaps fifty.
The countenance, which was typically Italian
— of the noble Italian type — struck him as
already familiar, yet he was quite sure that
it was not of Camilla that it reminded him.
He was still hunting the fugitive resemblance
when Mrs. Bush returned with the photo-
graph.

" I need not ask you, Mr. Allison," she said,
" to write at once when you have any news.

It is more than three weeks now " She

stopped a little abruptly.

" I'll telegraph," said Allison.

With the photograph of Camilla's father in
his pocket, and with the slow church bell
chiming behind him, he turned his steps east-
ward. Little groups of persons carrying prayer-
books were beginning to move sedately along
the main thoroughfare. Suddenly Allison's
heart stood still ; for the space of a couple of

D

50 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

breaths he believed that he beheld Camilla
coming towards him. Then he perceived that
this girl was not qven very much like her, that
a momentary sunbeam had given Camilla's
colour to a coil of light hair, and that the
figure in a biscuit-coloured dress was taller
and less slender than hers. He walked on
again in a world grown empty. Presently,
however, a new thought encouraged him.
Within half a mile — in Palace Gardens to be
precise — dwelt an old family friend who was a
barrister of eminence. Without any pause he
turned southward and began to thread the
windings of Silver Street.

Again fortune favoured him. Mr. Crozier
was at home, and, upon receipt of a message
about urgent private business, ordered the ad-
mission of his young friend to the study, where-
in he sat entrenched behind a fortress of papers.
He lifted a face at once inquiring and absent-
minded.

" Eh ? Laurence ? Is that you ? I thought
you were abroad somewhere."

" I was, until to-day, and I am going off
again not later than Tuesday."

At that the lingering inattention vanished
and left inquiry dominant upon the shrewd
and kindly countenance. The nearest papers
were pushed away.

THE EMBASSY TO LONDON 51

" Sit down, my boy ; sit down. Now tell me,
and for Heaven's sake begin at the beginning
and drive straight through/'

Allison, thus adjured, took a minute to reflect,
and drew out the photograph.

" That," he began to say, " is the por-
trait "

But his old friend interrupted him. " Why,
that's Veneroni ! " he exclaimed, bending over
the card with interest.

11 Did you know him ? " Allison asked,
amazed.

"I used to meet him a good deal at one
time at the Simonides'. He was a junior
partner of old Stephen Simonides. He was a
nice fellow, Veneroni, always ready to do any
one a kindness ; half the refugees over here
used to live on him, and they were plentiful
in my young day."

" Did you know his wife ? "

" American, wasn't she ? Showy woman,
with nothing in her."

" And his family ? Did you know anything
of that ? "

" I remember Constantine Simonides telling
me that he belonged to some great family, and
had lost everything by his opinions ; but I
never knew any details. He was the last man
in the world to boast of such things. But go

52 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

on with your story ; it interests me if it has to
do with Veneroni."

Allison told the story. His hearer hastily
noted several points, but he said nothing until
the narration had come to an end. Then he
remarked, "You make an uncommonly good
witness, Laurence. There are two or three
details in which I can help you. As to the
will, I will send my clerk to look it up ; it will
take him about a tenth of the time it would
take you. And I will see old Simonides — call
on him this very evening."

Allison expressed his gratitude, but ventured
to suggest that he further craved for an opinion.

Mr. Crozier leaned back in his chair, rattled
a bunch of keys in his pocket, and assumed an
inscrutable smile. Allison waited in patient
deference.

" The obvious explanation in the case of a
girl of twenty is a lover."

" But Mrs. Bush assured Ladzinski there
wasn't one."

"That is an assurance which parents and
guardians frequently entertain."

Allison said nothing, but he reflected that
age may sometimes lose in insight what it
gains in experience.

" You don't agree with my opinion ? " said
Mr. Crozier,

THE EMBASSY TO LONDON 53

" I don't," Allison promptly returned.

Mr. Crozier chuckled. "You are not such
a good witness after all. How do you know
that you don't agree with my opinion ? I
haven't expressed one yet"

" I wish you would express one," said
Allison, smiling.

" My opinion is that the young lady has
been deliberately deceived and enticed away ;
I don't know by whom, and I don't know in
what way, but almost certainly in order to
obtain money ; and if she is made at all after
her father's pattern, the trap was probably
some sort of appeal to her generosity. And
my further opinion is that the sooner she is
taken away from her present companions, the
better for her.'^

" But if she doesn't want to be taken away ?
She seems to be a free agent."

" Free agent ? Nothing of the kind ! She
is a' minor, isn't she? Make her a ward of
Court in no time."

" But is she an English subject ? "

" Certainly," returned Mr. Crozier with firm-
ness. " Her father was naturalised ; I remem-
ber the discussion about it at the time. The
girl was born in England, daughter of a
naturalised Englishman ; she is as English
as you are. But it doesn't follow," he added,

54 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

after a moment, "that these Italians know
it."

" Can I get a copy of the Act of Naturalisa-
tion, or whatever it is ? "

" I will see about that. Who's her nearest
relative here ? "

" Mrs. Bush, first cousin ; her mother's
niece."

" Married woman or widow ? "

" Married."

" What's the husband ? "

" I don't know. County society, I should
say, or well-to-do clergy, perhaps."

"And she lives?"

"21, Eglinton Gardens, Bayswater. I have
just left her."

" Ah, Veneroni's house. Come and dine
with me to-morrow evening and I will have
some more facts."

Allison hesitated an instant

" May I bring Guen ? "

" What ! is Guen with you ? Yes, bring her
by all means. Does she know all this ? "

" No, nothing."

"Oh, well, some of my girls will be in; I'll
tell 'em to."

He glanced again at the photograph which
still lay before him, and looked away with a
sigh.

THE EMBASSY TO LONDON 55

Allison picked up the card, and in doing so,
he too looked at it.

" I know now," he cried suddenly.

Mr. Crozier turned to him, astonished.

" The likeness that I could not get hold of,
in this and in the painting— it is to the man in
the church — the gentleman who was talking to
the other man."

" You are sure ? You are not being de-
ceived by something generically Italian ? "

" I think not."

" What age was the man ? "

" Forty to fifty at a rough guess."

" Veneroni, our Veneroni, Vincenzo, would
be seventy. He must have been fifty or there-
abouts when he married. "

" The man must be a relation," said Allison,
still gazing wide-eyed at the portrait.

"It appears possible," said the cautious
senior. " FU bear the point in mind."

He drew towards him his discarded papers, and
Allison, accepting the hint, made his farewells.

Once more he was out in the warm breath of
the London Sunday. The bells were all silent
now, and as he came to Kensington Church he
heard the ebb and flow of a familiar hymn and
the hour of noon striking on an unfamiliar clock.
It seemed a month since he had heard the
hours strike in the tower of Saragosta

56 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

Late in the afternoon Guendolen arrived,
and was delighted with the idea of going to
Italy.

" I must get a hat and some thick shoes,
that's all ; I can be ready to go to-morrow/'
she declared, and was even a little disappointed
to hear that they must wait till Tuesday.
"Must we go to the Graziers?" she murmured.
But being a person of easy temper, willing to
allow for other people's wishes without insisting
on knowing their motives, she said no more.

Notwithstanding her forbearance, however,
she was perfectly aware, before the close of
that evening, of wishes and motives existing
in her brother's mind and not communicated
to her. It was clear to her that in the three
weeks of their separation " something had hap-
pened" to Laurence. That "something had
happened " to Guendolen also, Laurence, on
the other hand, remained quite unsuspicious.

In Palace Gardens, the next evening, her
sisterly eye was observant of Lucy and Mildred
Crozier, and she soon convinced herself that
neither of those young ladies filled a great place
in her brother's thoughts. " But why, then,"
Guendolen asked herself, " did he stay another
day for the sake of coming here ? "

Dinner over, Mr. Crozier led the young man
away to his study. Yesterday's little paper of

THE EMBASSY TO LONDON 57

notes — he knew it again at once — lay upon a
larger sheet, which was closely written. Mr.
Crozier laid his hand on the two.

" I saw Simonides," he began. " He says
that Veneroni did belong to a swell family, and
they cast him off because of his opinions.
There was a father and an uncle and at least
one younger brother."

" Younger ? Then Miss Veneroni would be
the natural heiress."

"Gently, gently; what do wills exist for?
It does look a little as if your young lady was
a marchioness in her own right, but it doesn't
follow that she inherits a penny. I am not
familiar with the modern Italian laws of in-
heritance, and the naturalisation may be a bar.
As to the English will, the money was in trust
for the mother — Constantine Simonides and
James Bush trustees — but was to go straight
to the girl if she was eighteen or more at the
mothers death, as it appears she was. I have
seen Mrs. Bush "

" You have ? " cried Allison.

" And she consents to take immediate steps
to get her cousin made a ward of Court."

" But doesn't that involve publicity ? "

" Not at all ; then a guardian will no doubt
be appointed, and the young lady will have to
be guided by that guardian till she is of age,

58 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

which will not be until next June. This " — he
smoothed out carefully the shiny blue sheet
before him — "contains the signed declaration
of old Simonides as to his partner's naturalisa-
tion. I should think there is no high official
in any European country who would not accept
his statement. If you leave me your address,
I'll try and get a copy of the deed itself sent to
you."

Allison wrote down the rather voluminous
directions required by letters to Saragosta, and
Mr. Crozier, still meditating the case, inquired,
" What is the young lady like ? "

"Fair hair, almost red; very bright blue
eyes, regular features, delicate complexion."

" Pretty, then ? "

" I should say, very pretty."

" The mother was fair too, with a soft com-
plexion. Wonder whether she's a fool."

" She doesn't look it"

"Hml The mother did. And what about
your sister ? She is not going out with you, I
suppose ? "

" Oh, yes."

" Won't that be a little awkward ? You can't
fly to and fro, leaving Guen stranded in a
foreign hotel."

" There's Madame Perivier, you know, the old
French lady."

THE EMBASSY TO LONDON 59

11 You had better leave Guen with us ; the
girls will be delighted."

"You are very kind," said Allison with a
little inward embarrassment. He was sure in
his heart that Guendolen would choose to come
to Saragosta. This brother and sister, though
they could not always trace each other's inner
workings, had generally a clear enough percep-
tion of the results in which those workings
would issue ; and surely enough, Guendolen,
while making many grateful acknowledgments,
refused to stay. She was tired of London,
wanted a real change of air, and was dying to
take photographs of old Italian towns.

VI
THE ARROW IN THE AIR

IT was on Thursday afternoon, just a week
from the Thursday of Madame Perivier's
arrival, that the brother and sister alighted
at Dalarocca. Allison looked eagerly for
Ladzinski, or, failing Ladzinski, even Giro-
lamo. But neither was visible. It was clear
that no pedestrian could carry Guendolen's
trunk to Saragosta. Guendolen was not at
all impatient ; she stood smiling up and down
the dull and dirty station, finding for the pre-
sent pleasure enough in the mere foreignness of
the bills on the walls. A man, however, now
appeared, and announced that he was ordered
to fetch the baggage of the travellers, but that
as he had other errands in the town he could
not set out for Saragosta within an hour. An
hour in Dalarocca did not strike the newly-
disembarked as inviting ; they confided to him
their belongings, and started on foot. The
hilly path seemed to Allison wonderfully fami-
liar and home-like. On these hills, a week

60

THE ARROW IN THE AIR 61

ago, had disappeared that mysterious carriage.
Involuntarily he fell into silence, and his sister,
watching him, thought : " It happened at Sara-
gosta." She for her part was charmed with
everything ; she praised the solitude, the
peace, the exhilarating air. Presently, when
they came — suddenly, as one always came to
it — to the lonely farm with its high wall and its
air of ancient desolation, she declared that she
would like to live here — " among olives, actu-
ally olives ; and I daresay there's no postal
delivery. "

She walked a few steps nearer.

11 Does any one really live here, or is it an
enchanted castle ? "

" People live here : I have talked to 'em ;
and there's a dog. I wonder we have not
heard him bark. He barked at me furiously
last time I was here."

(f Depend upon it, the dog has fallen into a
hundred years' sleep, and the people too. I
want to see the other side. Is that just as
shut-up and dreary ? "

She advanced quickly across the dry, grey-
green herbage ; her brother more idly fol-
lowed. To him this scene was not so empty ;
memories peopled it, and the phantom of a
purple parasol lay beneath the olive trees.

The back of the enclosure, in which it was

62 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

difficult to tell at what precise point the house
ended, was, if anything, even drearier than the
front ; it lacked the arched doorway on the
right, and the little loggia peeping above the
wall on the left. The windows were all above
their heads, the lower range heavily caged in
iron and the upper little more than slits. On
this side were no olives ; the walls rose from
the thin turf, and nothing else was visible but
the sky.

" I like this greyness and blueness and
whiteness/' said Guendolen. "It is not quite
like anything else, and "

The words stopped short on her lips.
From high up in the white wall flew some-
thing white that fluttered downward, turned in
the air, struck lightly on Allison's shoulder,
and dropped to the ground.

Guendolen's surprise at this unexpected inci-
dent was deepened into amazement by her
brother's reception of it He uttered a faint,
inarticulate sound, something more than a
breath and less than a cry ; in an instant he
had caught the missile from the ground,
glanced at it, hidden it, and given her a
warning gesture that arrested her rising in-
quiry. His face, turned upward to the mute
wall which had so strangely spoken, showed
an intensity of eagerness such as she had

THE ARROW IN THE AIR 63

never, even in the vivid days of schoolboy-
hood, seen upon it.

The startling revelation was brief. He
turned to her, and said in a low voice, " Let
us go at once. Control yourself, and don't
show surprise ; it may be important."

She obeyed, and they returned quietly to the
pathway before the house. The door in the
wall was now open, and an old woman stood
watching their approach.

Allison threw her a cheerful greeting.

" Are you still seeking that carriage,
signor ? " she asked.

" No ; I have given up seeking the car-
riage," he replied.

Guendolen, whose Italian was even scantier
than his, could contribute to the conversation
nothing but a smile.

11 What was it, Laurence ? " she asked, as
they walked on.

" It was a letter."

11 And you knew from whom ? "

This was uttered rather as an affirmation
than as a question ; she had no doubt on the
subject

"Yes, I knew. Let us push on. When I
am sure we are out of sight and not followed,
I will read it."

Presently, in an absolutely lonely dip of the

64 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

undulating track, they sat down; Guendolen
was bidden to watch for any signs of approach,
and Allison drew out the strangely shaped
object which had fallen from the clouds. It
was, in fact, a small dart or javelin, artfully
formed of a folded sheet of paper, the point
being inserted into a head, made of a second
sheet, and fixed for security with a long black-
headed pin. Pencilled words were discernible
on both portions.

When Guendolen beheld that pin, she was
at once convinced that the artificer of the dart
was a woman.

Allison, drawing forth this significant pin,
held it doubtfully, not seeming to know in the
least how to dispose of it, until his sister, with
a little impatience, took it from him and thrust
it firmly into her own hat. He separated the
head from the body of the javelin, and opened
first the lightly folded shaft and then the
closely folded head.

On the shaft was written in Italian : —
"A reward will be given to the person who
takes this to M. S. Ladzinski, at the Hotel
Corona d' Italia at Saragosta, or to his English
friend."

The last words suggested to Allison the in-
credible probability that Camilla was actually
unacquainted with his name. He felt himself

THE ARROW IN THE AIR 65

suddenly removed to a great distance from
her.

The head of the dart being resolved once
more into a plain page, proved to contain
several lines written in English : —

11 1 am being kept here by force. I believe
that this is done with an idea of safety for me ;
but I will not submit to it. No one has any
right to control me. Help me to get away;
but do so without calling public attention.
Remember, I do not wish the police employed.
I have urgent reason for this. I am in no
danger, but I want to get away and go where
I please. I have been here for 7 days " (the
figure had plainly been added at the last
moment, in a space left for it). "Pray keep
my promise and reward the bearer."

Allison folded the papers neatly together,
and rose to his feet.

" The letter is for Ladzinski, really," he
said. " Let us get on as quickly as possible
to the hotel. They are keeping a young
English lady there, and she doesn't like it."

11 Keeping a young English lady ! Against
her will ! " The whole indignant amazement
of a sex and a nation were in Guendolen's
voice. " But why ? What excuse ? "

"I don't know. We shall learn, perhaps,
when we get her away."

66 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" But you knew she was there ? "

u I had no suspicion of it We have sought
her up and down. Ladzinski has been looking
for her for three weeks."

Guendolen's face wore an expression of
absolute stupefaction.

" But, Laurence — you mean she has been
carried off — kidnapped — banditti, and that sort
of thing ? "

11 No, I don't think it is quite so romantic as
that. I don't know. Nobody seems to know
how she was persuaded away at first. Last
Monday week she was at liberty ; we saw her,
both of us, and Ladzinski talked to her. On
Tuesday she had vanished without leaving a
word* On Thursday I got a glimpse of her,
in -a carriage, and she dropped a scrap of
paper. We have looked for her in vain ever
since."

" ' We ? ' But how came you to have any-
thing to do with it ? "

11 Oh, friend of the hero, you know ; sort of
part that always crops up — what they call the
feed, I believe, on the stage."

" Then M. Ladzinski, I understand, is in
love with this girl ? "

" Oh, my dear child, you must ask him that."

" It seems very — is she a — nice girl,
Laurence ? "

THE ARROW IN THE AIR 67

"I have never spoken to her. Ladzinski
seems to think so, and he has known her since
she was a little girl."

" Well, I call it very odd," said Guendolen,
and walked on revolving the case in silence
behind uplifted eyebrows.

On their arrival at the " Crown of Italy," the
whole staff came bustling to receive them ;
Allison was greeted like an old friend.

" But where," he asked, " is M. Ladzinski ? "

There was a shower of exclamatory expla-
nations. M. Ladzinski had gone away last
night, after returning only in the morning.
He had received a telegram, and had gone at
once. Ah, yes, yes, there was a letter.

Allison took the letter eagerly, ordered
some coffee — "for I don't think you would
much fancy the * Crown of Italy* tea" — and
conducted his sister to the upper room which
had heard so many consultations already about
Camilla.

Ladzinski wrote that he was called away by
Madame Perivier, who had seen Menosotti at
the station at Pistoja, and that he had immedi-
ately started in pursuit of him.

" Here's a pretty state of things," said Alli-
son discontentedly.

Guendolen, with a smile, held out her hand
for the letter, which was yielded to her.

68 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" Who is Menosotti ? " she asked.

" Oh, a wretch — her step-father."

" Oh ! well, it appears that Mr. Ladzinski
can't be reckoned upon for the present. It
will be you who will have to get her away
from that place."

"It looks like that, certainly."

" You won't leave her there, now you know
— not an hour' 9

" It is rather a difficult problem. If I go up
alone, I shall not get her ; and she forbids me
to take the police."

"Surely that's strange," said Guendolen;
and perhaps repeated inwardly her doubts
whether this could be a nice girl.

Allison drank his coffee, and seemed to find
good counsel in it

"There's an official who comes here to
dinner every day — a sindaco, whatever that
may be — a man called Sacchetti, whom we
have seen a good deal of. If I could get him
to go up with me — and Girolamo — and a
wheelbarrow."

" Girolamo ? "

" Oh, he's just a man here who drives a
wretched, jolting chaise to Dalarocca. It is
no sort of a road up there for a horse ; and
I suppose she will have some kind of lug-
gage."

THE ARROW IN THE AIR 69

Guendolen set down her empty cup.

" Let us go at once to your sindaco. I can
stroll about while you go in and talk to him."

" It is awfully lucky you are here," Allison
observed as they crossed the square.

11 Is it ? I am glad you think so."

" What should I do with an unknown young
lady all alone in Saragosta ? "

11 You have not got your young lady yet,"
Guendolen remarked rather grimly; and with
these words in his ears, Allison passed be-
neath the Italian shield that crowned Signor
Sacchetti's official doorway.

VII
THE SYNDIC TO THE RESCUE

"TT7ELL?" said Guendolen eagerly, as

VV her brother emerged with a cheerful
countenance from the shadow of the shield of
Italy.

"It is all right. I have talked him over.
Had to pitch it pretty strong about old Crozier,
and my having seen Mrs. Bush. ,, These refer-
ences were Hebrew to Guendolen, but she for-
bore inquiry. " I hope she is a ward in I
Chancery by this time, and that I have not
perjured myself. Anyway, he'll come. I am
to get Girolamo and come back for him."

He hurried her away to the ancient mansion
over against the Villa Sans Souci.

11 Do you mean to say," cried Guendolen,
11 that Girolamo lives there, in that palace ? "

" He does, and very uncomfortably, I have no
doubt The Villa Sans Souci, there, is a far
more civilised dwelling."

They stepped under the stone archway into

70

THE SYNDIC TO THE RESCUE 71

a dark entry, full of old-established smells.
The obliging Girolamo issued, smiling, from
some inner recesses, and readily engaged to
borrow a hand-barrow and to meet the others
at the church in ten minutes' time.

11 1 suppose," said Guendolen, whose views of
the affair seemed to be a little tinctured by
Mrs. Radcliffe, " that the people up there are
not likely to resist. Have you got any sort of
weapon ? "

" No, by the bye. I'll ask Sacchetti whether
he has such a thing as a pistol. If we are not
back in a couple, of hours, Sacchetti's clerk will
take a letter to the commanding officer at the
barracks, half a mile out. But I don't for a
moment suppose there will be any need."

They were now before the syndical office;
she gave him back his hopeful smile, and turned
away towards the hotel.

Within, Allison found not only Sacchetti but
also the doctor, who having heard from his
friend some hint of the affair, was desirous of
accompanying them.

"Medical aid," he observed gravely, "can
never come amiss."

" Pray come with us," said Allison politely.
Privately he thought of Henny-Penny and
Cocky- Locky in the nursery legend. The
doctor's remark reminded him also of his

72 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

sister's apprehensions, and he asked about a
pistol.

" A pistol ! " cried Sacchetti, and in the
twinkling of an eye produced three. They
were rather curious than modern, but for the
purpose of inspiring alarm in this primitive
district no doubt sufficient The three adven-
turers, therefore, set forth, their dangers aug-
mented by the presence in each man's pocket
of a loaded firearm.

They gathered in Girolamo and a barrow,
and proceeded — again like Henny-Penny and
her party — up the hillside.

In three-quarters of an hour or so they had
reached the point of attack, and were standing
before the door in the white wall. The hang-
ing bell was pulled, and, after several minutes,
the door was cautiously opened by an old man.
At his heels was a large white dog of the
fleecy-coated Italian breed which is reputed
ferocious, but which in English eyes bears a
pacific resemblance to that lesser variety which
stands on a green board and squeaks.

Sacchetti and the doctor greeted the farmer
by the name of Pasquale, and looked at
Allison.

" We have come," said Allison, " to fetch the
English lady who is here."

The man made a movement, but the doctor's

THE SYNDIC TO THE RESCUE 73

foot had been placed within the range of the
door, and if he had thought of shutting it in
their faces, he desisted

" There is no English lady here," he replied,
after an instant

11 1 have this very day had a letter from her,
given me from a window of this house."

The syndic interposed.

" We must see the lady who is in your
house. She writes that she is being detained
against her will. The law will not permit
that."

The man repeated that there was no English
lady.

" There is a lady," Sacchetti persisted, " over
whom you have no legal right, and that lady
must be produced. Otherwise the master of a
house in which an illegal act is done must be
arrested."

Pasquale hesitated.

" But her brother " he began.

" She has no brother," said Allison firmly.

" Come, come," said Sacchetti ; " can you not
see, Pasquale, that you have been deceived,
and are being employed in a bad business ?
This man who calls himself her brother is no
relation of the lady. She is an English lady ;
and this English gentleman comes from her
relations. You know me. I will be answer-

74 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

able for her restitution to this brother if he will
come to me and prove his claim."

" But her brother says that she is placed
here to prevent her from marrying against the
will of her family."

He looked significantly at Allison.

" Her family," Sacchetti resumed, " is in
England, and her guardian is a great lord ot
that country. Her marriage is not possible
without his sanction ; and if his ward were to
be imprisoned by Italians, there might — Heaven
preserve us I — be a war."

Having given this handsome version of the
position of a ward in Chancery, the Saragos-
tian resolutely pushed wider the open door and
walked in. Within, was a grassy court, the
house occupying the front, right-hand angle.
The besiegers followed their leader closely, and
the perplexed proprietor brought up the rear.
Sacchetti stepped unhesitatingly into a wide
hall which seemed to cover nearly the whole
ground-floor, and to serve for kitchen, living-
room and store-house. Sounds of animals
rustling and munching came from beyond a
wooden partition at one end. The old woman
— bent over a large red pot with something in
it that smelt of onions — looked up astonished.

Sacchetti wished her good evening, and bade
her ask the young lady to walk downstairs.

THE SYNDIC TO THE RESCUE 75

She looked at him, then she looked at her
husband, and, finally, having received no pro-
hibition, advanced towards the winding stair
which rose in one angle, and disappeared
among its shadows.

The four visitors stood grouped in the wide
entrance ; the farmer, with his hand on the
head of his white dog, stood a pace or two
away in the courtyard. The face of the man
and the face of the quadruped alike expressed
uncertainty and uneasiness.

After a few minutes they heard the peculiar
little scrape of a skirt's edge upon stone stairs,
and the much-discussed young lady came
swiftly into the room.

Allison — who after all had seen her but twice
before, and for a minute or two at a time — re-
ceived a shock of surprise. The Camilla of his
memory, or rather perhaps of his imagination,
was a creature of intense vitality, impulsive,
self-willed, not controllable nor probably self-
controlled. This Camilla was calm and concen-
trated ; her colouring, which he remembered so
vivid in the morning sunlight, took soberer
tones in this shadowy hall, and certain classic
lines of feature became now the leading
characteristic of her face. There was some-
thing in it of certain statues of Diana, a touch,
too, of certain Minervas. But this statuesque

n Till* PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

Camilla lasted only a moment. She stopped
tthort; a brilliant smile flashed into her face;
tthe made an eager step forward, and holding
out her hands to Allison, cried : " Ah, you have
come ! "

That was the voice which had caught his
attention that morning in the square above the
church — a voice fuller and deeper than was
quite consonant with her slight frame and
northern colouring — an inheritance rather from
the Italian parent than from the American.

Involuntarily he began an English word of
answer, but stopped himself, recollecting that
converse in an unknown tongue might seem to
the others suspicious.

"This," he said, in deliberate Italian, "is
Signor Sacchetti, the syndic of Saragosta.
This, Signor Sacchetti, is Miss Veneroni.
Perhaps you would like to ask her some
questions."

Camilla and Sacchetti bestowed each a polite
bow upon the other.

11 May I ask you, Miss Veneroni, whether
you are here by your own wish ? "

14 1 am not ; I wish to go away," she replied ;
and though her voice was mellowly Italian, her
accent was perceptibly English. Sacchetti, by
a movement of the eyebrow, invited the atten-
tion of the doctor to this detail.

THE SYNDIC TO THE RESCUE 77

" You are prevented from going away ? n

" I have been prevented"

11 By the orders of your brother ? "

" I have no brother."

" Do you know this English gentleman ? '

She hesitated a moment

" To-day is the first time I have spoken to
him, but I know that he is the friend of my
friends, and I wrote to him to come and fetch
me.

The tone of all these answers was admirably
direct and simple, and her eyes were as candid
as her speech.

Sacchetti waved his hand to the farmer.

" And you, Pasquale, have you anything to
say ? "

He murmured something about her brother.

" This brother," said Sacchetti ; " is he an
Englishman ? "

" No, signor, an Italian."

" But the lady," Sacchetti bade him remark,
" is not an Italian. It is clear by the way she
speaks that she is a foreigner." He turned
again to Camilla, and beckoned Girolamo.
" This man has a truck for your luggage. He
will go up and wait at your door to bring down
anything belonging to you. The rest of us
will wait here until you are ready."

He seated himself on a stone bench by the

78 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

wall ; the doctor and Allison did the same ;
Camilla and Girolamo ascended the stair, and
silence fell

On the open hearth a little wood -flame
snapped and crackled ; beyond the dark parti-
tion cattle stamped and munched As he sat
here, in this shadowy place of dreams, Allison's
mind went back over the scene which had just
passed. He had not yet addressed twenty
words to this girl : hers to him, he remembered,
had numbered exactly four ; and here he was
transformed suddenly into her guardian and
nearest friend, taking her into his charge, not
only with her own consent, but by the
authority of the Italian law. It was a fairy
tale — a dream.

She returned, the heavy footstep of Girolamo
following. She had now a hat upon her head,
and in her hand a purple-shot parasol. Giro-
lamo bore a portmanteau, a bag, and a cloak.
Three minutes later the whole party was on
the open hill-side, their long shadows pointing
forward on the road to Saragosta.

VIII
THE RESCUED MAIDEN

HAVING parted at the church from their
companions, Camilla and Allison, a little
shy now that they were left alone, descended
the worn stone stairs to the main street of the
town.

" It was here that I first saw you," said
Allison. " I heard you speaking English and
looked over."

She looked back at the steps, and seemed to
look back in the same glance at the past
Turning again to her companion, she said : " I
have been wanting to ask you all the time —
Where is Severyn ? "

11 He has gone to Milan, I believe, after
Signor Menosotti."

" Signor Menosotti ? " she echoed.

"Madame Perivier saw him at Pistoja and^
telegraphed for Ladzinski."

" Madame Perivier ! But why did she ? "

Allison recounted the coming of Madame
Perivier, and then, as they were now close to

79

80 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

the hotel, proceeded : " You will find my sister
here ; you saw her, most likely, with me, this
afternoon."

"Yes, I saw her, and I wondered whether
she was your sister."

" She only came to-day. We were walking
from the station. There she is at the window."

Camilla looked up. Guendolen waved a
welcoming hand and vanished. A minute
later she was uttering her welcome in words at
the foot of the staircase, accepting the whole
position as if it were the most natural thing in
the world, and Camilla as if she had known
her for a dozen years. Allison, standing by,
felt that he had never, till this moment, done
full justice to his sister's merits. The two
girls went off together, and he seized this first
minute to write, and send upon the earliest
stage of its journey, his promised telegram to
Mrs. Bush.

The rescued damsel came gaily into the
room with her arm in Guendolen's, and with
an enchanting air of having dwelt all her days
at the hotel of the Crown of Italy.

" Can you tell me " she inquired, " how soon
I can send a letter to England ? "

" Not until to-morrow ; but if your letter is
to Mrs. Bush, I have this minute telegraphed
to her that you are safe with us."

THE RESCUED MAIDEN 81

Camilla looked startled.

" You know Mrs. Bush ? " she murmured.

" 1 saw Mrs. Bush on Sunday."

"And Madame Perivier a day or two
before ! " She began to laugh with the gayest
and most infectious of laughter. " And I am
not even certain of your name ! " she cried.
This information was supplied, and the chance
which brought together Allison and Ladzinski
explained.

" I should like to see Mr. Ladzinski," said
Guendolen ; and her brother launched forth
into warm eulogy of his absent friend. Camilla
listened with downcast eyes, and with an aspect
of some discomfort, due not to dissent, but to
an uneasy uncertainty whether it was upon her
accepted suitor that he supposed himself to be
lavishing these praises. The entrance of the
waiter, who came to inquire whether ces dames
would attend the table-cF hdte, effected a diver-
sion. The ladies looked for advice to their
cavalier.

" If you don't object," said Allison, " I hope
you will come down. There will probably be
no one but the two men whom you have seen —
Sacchetti and the doctor. It would be well—
don't you think ? — to avoid any appearance of
concealing yourself from them."

The waiter departed with his answer, and

F

82 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

Guendolen immediately inquired whether
these Italian gentlemen were picturesque
persons who would like to be photographed.
Her eye, as she spoke — the devouring eye of
the person with a recently acquired hobby —
rested upon Camilla.

The two Saragostians were discovered
standing a little uncertainly behind their
chairs ; at the entrance of the English party
they bowed in unison, like figures on a clock,
and a simultaneous wave of satisfaction spread
across their countenances. Camilla smiled
gratefully upon them, and Guendolen, finding
herself placed next to the syndic, at once began
to express, in fluent French, her admiration for
the skill with which he had directed the rescue.
The syndic smiled a diplomatic smile, and
presently, in the absence of the waiter, took
occasion to say that there was one point to
which he must draw Miss Veneroni's attention.
Miss Veneroni was all polite expectation.

" This gentleman, who calls himself your
brother — I undertook to restore you to him if
he should prove his claim. I fear I must
therefore beg you to remain within my know-
ledge for at least several days."

Camilla was grave; she appeared to hesi-
tate.

"If it suits your plans," Allison quickly inter-

THE RESCUED MAIDEN 83

posed, " to remain here with us, my sister and
I have only our own pleasure to consult ; and
for my own part I should be unwilling to leave
until I hear from M. Ladzinski."

"And I," said Guendolen, "until I have
thoroughly photographed Saragosta."

" Thank you," said Camilla simply, but with
her fervent glance. " Certainly, signor, I will
stay, but you will see that no claim will be
made."

The meal was far more conversational than
usual ; the Saragostians emulated each other in
their efforts to be agreeable, and each carried
home a pleasing conviction of having suc-
ceeded.

"The French lady," the doctor remarked,
"was very agreeable, but these are more
charming."

" I have always been of opinion," said Sac-
chetti, " that the English system of education
made the damigelle of that nation agreeable in
intercourse for strangers/'

Camilla, on her appearance next morning in
the sitting-room, inquired eagerly whether there
were letters, and, hearing from Allison that there
were none, stood for a moment looking at him
with a little doubtful air, her blue eyes bluer
than ever, her rose-leaf complexion extra-
ordinarily pure and clear in this early morning

84 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

freshness, so that the delicate tints seemed
actually to waver as she breathed. "I am
wondering, Mr. Allison/' she said, "whether
I don't owe you some sort of explanation of —
of my being here at all, in fact."

Allison eagerly protested that he had no
claim to any explanation, and that her doings
needed no justification in his eyes.

"I am not sure that they don't in mine," she
returned with a sudden rueful smile. After
an instant, and with a mischievous light shining
through the demureness of her face, " Shouldn't
you like to know ? " she asked.

"Yes, I should like to know," Allison
admitted; and she smiled, but offered no further
communication.

Guendolen came in cheerful and rejoicing in
the fine weather. " Do you know," said she,
" there is a sort of cupboard with a window in
the wall of my room ; I have been pasting over
the window with orange-coloured paper, and it
will be just splendid for developing."

" And are we to go out with you and take
photographs?" said Camilla. "You' don't
know how delicious it seems to be able to walk
about where one likes, after being shut in for
seven days in the house and court at Casello."

For some hours of the morning, accordingly,
the two young ladies and the camera and the

THE RESCUED MAIDEN 8$

shot-silk parasol and the docile attendant squire
perambulated, amid considerable local interest,
the town of Saragosta. Guendolen, as the
responsible operator, was serious and absorbed,
but Camilla was gaily conversational. For
Allison the presence of this second onlooker
furnished, naturally enough, the chief interest of
the expedition. The name, the doings, the
past, the ancestry of Camilla, had been so much
his familiar topics of inquiry and meditation,
that she herself had come to assume in his
thoughts a distinct and highly romantic person-
ality. The real Camilla, however, was a
stranger to him, and this morning began the
difficult passage from imagination to acquaint-
ance. Nothing could be less heroic — or more
agreeable — than the easy cheerfulness of her
present mood. By noonday Guendolen had
decided that Miss Veneroni's recent strange
predicament had surely not been due to her
own fault; and Allison, translating the same
opinion into a different notation, felt, with a
faint involuntary twinge of disappointment, that
apparently the romance encircling her had be-
longed solely to her circumstances and to Lad-
zinski.

IX
ALLISON AS FATHER CONFESSOR

ON the night of Friday there was a lively
thunderstorm, and Saturday morning
showed resolutely rainy.

Guendolen, after some observations upon
the too flattering reputation enjoyed by the
Italian climate, retired to her developing cup-
board. Camilla began by accompanying her,
but, finding no field for assistance, presently
returned to Allison in the big saloon and
turned over rather indifferently the five vol-
umes which constituted the hotel's library.
By-and-by she said abruptly, " Mr. Allison,
I have been thinking that perhaps it would be
a good thing for some one person to know all
about my coming here. Things might happen
—-one never knows. And so, since you would
like to know "

He made a heroic interruption : " If only
one person is to hear, should it not rather be
Ladzinski ? "

" No, it should not," Miss Veneroni replied

86

ALLISON AS FATHER CONFESSOR 87

with some asperity, and for a moment she
remained silent

Allison felt his virtue — which had not been
easy to him — receiving virtue's usual reward.

Presently, however, she relented. "My
father," she began, " was a political exile. Per-
haps you knew that"

" Yes."

" His father was a marquis."

" I know."

" But you know everything ! Who told
you that ? "

" Mr. Simonides was the channel."

" Ah ! I felt sure my cousin did not know."

" The mother did not know," was Allison's
mental comment

11 And my father was the eldest son, but he
did not try and return afterwards and take the
title. He told me that he did not feel it a
duty, because his next brother, my uncle Luca,
had much more liberal views than my grand-
father; and he did not wish me to be left to
the influence of his Italian relatives. He knew
he was not likely to live till I grew up. He
used to talk to me a great deal about Italy —
about what they had tried to do, and how bad
things were." She paused and added in an
altered voice, "They are not so much better
now."

88 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

Her eyes wandered from her hearer's face ;
her own stiffened into intensity, ' and the
sprightly modern girl became a classic heroine
of tragedy. The Englishman, with a steady-
going ancestry behind him, unpractised for a
couple of centuries in plots and conspiracies,
had never seen a woman in real life look like
this. Something near the surface of his nature
shivered at the dangers that attend such enthu-
siasms; something deeper down responded.
It was that moment of decisive appeal — for the
generous — when we recognise suddenly in
another soul the nobility that involves suffering.
This recognition, which had already once or
twice waved a wing over Allison and with-
drawn, had been at the root of certain ill-
defined emotions, haunting the earlier days of
the Camilla legend. Since yesterday, when the
heroine had been replaced by the pleasant
average girl, they had ceased to haunt; his
attitude had become critically observant, and
his good-will rather rational than emotional.
Now, in a flash, there was an end of all this
calm, well-ordered rationality. He left oft
thinking, and began simply to feel.

"The cause that my father gave up every-
thing for," Camilla continued, "is not dead.
It is just as much alive as it was then. I must
not tell you details. A message was brought

ALLISON AS FATHER CONFESSOR 89

to me. An old companion of my father's sent
for me. It was thought that I could do certain
things, as an Englishwoman, without being sus-
pected and without so much danger."

Allison thirsted to ask, "What things ?"
The darkest apprehensions beset him ; assassi-
nations, dynamite, daggers, and scaffolds danced
before his eyes.

" I took certain messages," Camilla pro-
ceeded. " I was to meet a man in the hills
between here and Dalarocca, and tell him —
well, I went twice, from the Villa Sans Souci.
It was when I was coming back, the second
time, that a little boy gave me Severyn's letter.
I sent him word to meet me near Casello.
And then the man, who was the agent in all
this, wanted me not to go ; but I would. We
always spoke English/' she added ; " it was
thought better, because of not being under-
stood."

She paused a moment ; a touch of self-
conscious remembrance tinged her cheek, and
she left him to reconstitute in his own mind
the crisis of his awakening and interven-
tion.

" That same afternoon," she continued, a
little hurriedly, "there came a message. We
had been traced, and perhaps I should be
arrested, and we had to go away at once. We

90 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

only went to the second station beyond Dala-
rocca, and we stayed the night at a little village
— I don't know its name — and the next day we
went to another ; and then we came in a car-
riage, and he would not tell me where we were
going, and I began to be angry. I was ready
to do anything of my own will ; it was not
necessary to treat me like a child. Then, when
I saw you, suddenly I made up my mind, and
I made a sign — I hoped you would know me —
and then I pricked the paper and threw it out ;
did you ever find it ? "

" Yes, I found it"

" Well, he took me up to Casello, and when
he was gone I found they had orders to keep
me there. I suppose it was to hide me — to
make sure of my safety ; or perhaps they actu-
ally thought I might be frightened and betray
them."

She paused, indignant, the full emphasis of
her scorn in her voice and in the proud lifting
of her head. Indeed, Allison thought, it must
be a conspirator of small discrimination who
imagined this girl to be of the kind that is
frightened into confessions.

"I was very angry," said Camilla simply,
and, indeed, somewhat superfluously. " I did
not say much to Pasquale and Rosina — what
was the use ? — but I determined to get free.

ALLISON AS FATHER CONFESSOR 91

I remembered how we used to make those
darts when we were children — Severyn and his
cousins and I — in the court of his aunt's house
in Paris. I had forgotten the way to fold
them. I tried and tried a whole day before I
found it out again. Then I wrote that letter,
only I left a space blank for the number of
days ; and I waited and waited for some one
to come in sight. And then, when I heard
voices — and it was you ! Only," her voice
slackened pace as she drew to her close, " I
was frightened when I found you had brought
the syndic, and I am a little frightened still/ 9
Her engaging smile had returned, and she
looked up with a doubtful, deprecating air.

Allison found himself unable to answer ; he
had too much to say. There was a brief inter-
val, in which he began to feel the solemn duty
of speaking words of wisdom to this rash
young woman.

" Are you sure," he ventured at last, " that
you quite understand the full nature of this " —
he was going to say " conspiracy," but stopped
himself in time—" this design ? "

"Why, yes," returned Camilla with round
and innocent eyes of surprise. "We want to
make Italy really free — to release the poor
from undue taxation and from tyranny."

" By violence ? "

92 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" Well, I suppose by fighting, if it has to
come to that."

Allison sat silent with a countenance of ex-
treme gravity.

11 You disapprove ! " cried Camilla, flushing
angrily.

" I don't feel that I know enough to judge.
What I am wondering is — if you will forgive
my saying so — whether you know enough to
judge."

" I think I do," said the young lady with
haughty gentleness.

Allison felt that he was distinctly not invited
to express any further opinion. Yet his silence
did not appear entirely to satisfy her. An
inquiring, almost an apologetic eye was directed
towards him. He accepted the invitation.

" I don't ask you to tell me anything, but
may I just tell you the things that strike me ?
First, about this agent — whether he is really
trustworthy — whether you know all about him.
His behaviour in getting you shut up there

doesn't look Well, it looks odd. And then,

if the condition of Italy is so bad, is it because
of any curable defects of government ? Is not
the real trouble that the preservation of the
country demands a larger military outlay than
it can afford? I don't say it is so — I don't
know ; but are you sure it isn't ? And if there

ALLISON AS FATHER CONFESSOR 93

is even a chance that this may be what is the
matter, doesn't it rather look as if the people
who are running this attempt don't really quite
understand the case ? and may they not be
mistaken in the means as well ? It would be
a frightful thing if you were to be made a tool,
perhaps, of "

"Of?" echoed Camilla.

" Of an attack upon anybody's life, for in-
stance."

She shrank perceptibly. u Oh, no ; you are
quite mistaken. They are not anarchists.
They are reformers — Liberals."

"Republicans?"

*" Yes, certainly ; but it is not the form that
they care so much about. They want a really
absolutely representative system, and the poor
and ignorant not to be at the mercy of the
better off and better taught/'

"Ah! that is what we all want; but I am
afraid the only way to it lies in the abolishing
of ignorance, and that takes such a long time."

Camilla's eyes were full, of wonder, of con-
sideration, of balancings ; in their blue depths
lay a faint shadow of doubt and alarm. Most
women, by the time they reach her age, have
learned to do their thinking behind a veil ; but
that was a lesson which Camilla would pro-
bably never learn. Each question and answer,

94 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

as it passed through her brain, spoke in her
face ; and a lie in her mouth would have been
as futile as in that of a child of two.

"They were the things my father tried to
do," she murmured ; and Allison had not the
heart to retort, " But is this the Italy in which
he tried to do them ? "

His absence of insistence saved her from
throwing up bulwarks against him, behind
which she would afterwards have been com-
pelled to entrench herself.

A few minutes passed in silence; then
Camilla, turning suddenly towards him, said,
" I will do nothing further without telling you.
It is not that I distrust any one, but I can see
that some one ought to know. And it is
easier," she added, with a smile of charming
candour, "to tell it to some one who has no
sort of right to stop me."

"I wish," said Allison, "that you would
spread the knowledge to one or two people
more."

" You must not do so," she cried sharply.

" Of course I must not. That's why I wish
that you would."

" I will wait, at any rate," Camilla retorted,
"until I am at home in England, and until I
have outgrown your Lord Chancellor whom
you have set over me."

ALLISON AS FATHER CONFESSOR 95

The words were defiant, but the tone was
gay, and the glance friendly. Allison, looking
neither back nor forward, nor yet into himself,
was but half aware of the pleasure that he
felt in possessing her secret and her confidence.
This talk had replaced the Camilla of his
fancies by another Camilla, formed indeed after
much the same likeness, but in the round
instead of in the flat, possessing the three-
quarters and the full face and a second profile.

X

MORE GUESTS AT THE "CROWN OF

ITALY "

THE mid-day meal was not long over
when the syndic presented himself.

"The false brother has turned up," was
Allison's first thought, and he felt sure that
Camilla's was like his own.

"A strange thing," said Sacchetti, "has
happened. Pasquale came down this morn-
ing from Casello to tell me that an unknown
gentleman had been there declaring that Miss
Veneroni was his cousin, and desiring to take
her away with him."

Camilla's face was blank with surprise.

"And what did Pasquale do?" asked Al-
lison.

"He told him to come and inquire of me."

" And has he come ? "

" Not at present," returned Sacchetti, with
a dry smile. "You would be willing, sig-
norina, if he should come, that I should bring

him here to see you ? "

9 6

MORE GUESTS 97

" By all means," said Camilla. " This is
very interesting. What was he like, this
cousin ? I know none of my cousins in Italy
— not even whether there are any — and I am
a little curious."

"Ah, signorina, Pasquale has not the gift
of description. If the gentleman comes to me,
I will bring him here for you to judge ; and
if he should refuse to come to you — which I
cannot imagine — I will observe him in every
detail, and describe him to you." Turning
to the Englishman, he inquired, with much
politeness, after his sister. Allison explained
her employment, and Camilla went to fetch
her.

Sacchetti seized the moment of her absence
to say quickly : " Mr. Allison, I think there is
no need to wait longer for the supposed brother.
If I were you, I would take the young lady
quickly home."

" Gladly," answered Allison.

Sacchetti, looking at him rather critically,
added : "I do not understand the whole of
this affair, but it seems as though persons of
doubtful motives were pursuing this young
lady. You, signor, are her countryman. I
should, under all circumstances, support your
claim ; but it would be better to place her with
her own family."

G

98 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" Much better," said Allison heartily. " We
will go, if possible, this evening."

Guendolen came in with stained and cold
fingers, and began to compliment the amiable
syndic upon the beauties of his town. Sac-
chetti began to have visions of a stream of
tourists for ever trickling through Saragosta,
and a succession of conversible English ladies
enlivening the evening table (Phdte.

" Do you suppose," Allison asked Camilla
when they were again alone, " that this man
was really your cousin, or an emissary of the
police, or an agent of the man who called him-
self your brother ? "

" I cannot tell at all. It is possible ; my
father had two brothers, and I know that both
of them were married ; but I do not see how
any of my father's relations could learn of my
being here."

" Sacchetti thinks you should go home to
England."

She meditated, broke out impulsively, " I
wish I could see — " and then arresting herself,
finished with a smile—" some one."

" I am glad you can't," thought Allison, who
perfectly comprehended that it was not the
name of Ladzinski which should have com-
pleted the sentence.

At this moment the waiter appeared and

MORE GUESTS 99

handed to Allison a telegram. Opening it, he
read aloud, " Shall arrive this afternoon. — Bush."

" That's all right," said he cheerfully, and
with a creditable endeavour to stifle internal
regrets.

" Yes, I suppose so," assented Camilla rather
doubtfully. " At any rate, you won't have
the bother of seeing me back to England,
which I am certain you would have insisted
upon doing."

She went to give orders for her cousins
accommodation, and Allison was left to reflect
how strong in two short days had become the
habit of companionship, and how vast would
be the blank left by her departure. When she
presently returned, Guendolen came with her,
and, announcing that she had now dealt with
all her plates, and that they were going to
be splendid, seated herself by the window, and
lapsed — in reaction, no doubt, from her morn-
ing of solitude and silence — into unwonted
volubility.

"The rain gives quite a new character to
this place," she presently remarked. "Look
how the wetness brings out all the lines ; every-
thing shines ; it might all be brown marble
instead of this rough stone. And it is not
raining so very much now, except from the
spouts and gutters. And the great black hole

ioo THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

of that open window on the other side ! Oh,
why do we have flat windows with no light and
shade to them at home ? "

11 Because we haven't got the Italian climate/'
her brother returned, with a touch of profes-
sional dogmatism.

"Only there are no people; it is like that
city in the Arabian Nights, where the people
were all changed into different kinds of fishes.
Do Italians never go out when it rains ? Then
what is the use of those gigantic red umbrellas
that they sell in the shops? Ah, there's a
little boy; he shrinks along and shakes his
bare toes like a cat. I wish I could draw.
Oh, and here comes actually a man — such an
interesting-looking man, in a grey coat. Do
look here, Laurence, for a minute. Is this
some distinguished inhabitant of Saragosta ? "

Allison looked and beheld Ladzinski, and
remembered how seldom he had thought of
him in the last two days.

" Do you know who it is ? " repeated Guen-
dolen.

11 It is Ladzinski," said Allison.

Camilla's voice behind him, low and startled,
said : " Severyn ! " She closed the book whose
leaves she had been turning and stood up, then
seemed to pause, and stood without advancing
to the window.

MORE GUESTS 101

" Well " said Guendolen, uttering in that

vague exclamation her feeling that here indeed
came the fitting hero of the romance.

The graceful, grey figure drew swiftly nearer
and was lost to sight ; a light and rapid step
came up the stair, and Ladzinski was among
them.

The change of his face, as he beheld Camilla,
was like nothing but the sudden blaze of flame
in a dull fire, and when he spoke her name the
sound of his voice — the voice was a mellow
tenor, hovering on the edge of the baritone
— pierced straight to the heart. Guendolen
thought : " If a man whom I had never seen
spoke my name in that voice, and looked at
me with that face, I should rise up and follow
him round the world." As to Allison, his
emotions were so conflicting and so complex
that any spoken word would have seemed to
himself deceptive in its inadequacy.

Camilla exhibited no very marked change
of face ; she became perhaps a shade paler,
said in a very quiet and still voice, "Ah,
Severyn ! " and held out her hand. His eyes
rapidly perused her whole person. " Ah, you
are safe," he said, "and you have not suffered."

"Nothing but a little anger," she replied.
" Some well-meaning people tried to control
me against my will, and you know " — a smile

102 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

broke— "that I don't like that. Mr. Allison
brought the syndic and took me away; and
this is Miss Allison, his sister," — Ladzinski
bowed in a mechanical and vacant manner, —
"and my cousin, Mrs. Bush, is coming this
afternoon. Now you know everything."

She was speaking quickly and with an effort
at gaiety. Upon the face of her hearer had
come an expression of repose and content such
as Allison had never before seen there. Re-
calling himself with a deep breath to the
consideration of that fraction of the universe
which was not Camilla, Ladzinski now turned
to Allison.

" He is fond of Laurence, too," Guendolen
thought to herself, and in this observation
recognised her secret expectation that the
suitor of Camilla would be jealous of her
deliverer.

" And how is Madame Perivier ? " the Eng-
lishman asked.

" She is well ; she will be here by the next

train."

"What!" cried Allison and Camilla with
one voice, and Guendolen began to laugh.
Ladzinski, at this sound, remembered her ex-
titence, looked at her, and found that this
lister of Allison's had agreeable brown eyes,
the warm complexion which is England's at-

MORE GUESTS 103

tempt at a brunette> a quantity of brown hair,
neither dark nor light, and a most delightful
air of health and wholesomeness. She at once
displayed the British practicality of her mind
by asking, in the first place, whether the re-
sources of the " Crown of Italy " would be
equal to the fresh demands upon them, and,
in the second, whether Mr. Ladzinski did not
want a meal.

When these points had been settled, Camilla
asked : " But, Severyn, why did you go after
Signor Menosotti ? "

Guendolen at this question rose and was
quietly going away, but Camilla interposed.
" Don't go, Guendolen ; there isn't any secret in
the matter, and if there is, we won't discuss it."

" No secret at all," said Ladzinski. " After
that last glimpse that Allison had of you in
the carriage, we were not sure that you were
still a free agent ; and Menosotti was quite
capable of trying to coerce you. I thought I
had better follow him on the chance." He
paused and hesitated. "It did seem to me,
when I got him at bay, that he was not so
ignorant of your movements as he pretended."

" Oh ! " said Camilla, visibly startled. She
revolved the unpleasing idea, and reached a
consoling conclusion. " No doubt it was just
his habit of always deceiving. I don't think

io 4 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

it possible he can know anything about me.
Where is he ? "

" I believe he was going to Paris. It was
not to Paris that he told me he was going."

" Was he hostile or friendly ? "

" Horribly friendly."

" Ugh ! " "said Camilla, with a little shudder.

They were interrupted by the buzz of an
arrival, and hurried out to meet Mrs. Bush.

The excellent Sacchetti, arriving at dinner-
time, half expectant of a table laid only for
himself and the doctor, beheld with amazement
an array of no less than eight places. Sounds
from the staircase heralded an imposing pro-
cession. First came Madame Perivier in a
nondescript black woollen gown, then a British
lady in a dress also black, but shining, silken,
and besprinkled with innumerable twinkling
beads. After her came the two young ladies,
and finally the Englishman and the Pole. The
meal at once assumed the character of a dinner-
party to the invitation of Madame Perivier.
She it was who performed the introductions,
distributed the company, and guided the main
conversation. Allison found himself next to
Mrs. Bush, beyond whom was Sacchetti, and
beyond Sacchetti Madame Perivier. Facing
her on the other side sat Ladzinski, then Camilla,
the doctor, and, opposite to himself, Guen-

MORE GUESTS 105

dolen. A little island of English speech was
thus enclosed by the two Saragostians, and
Mrs. Bush was enabled to murmur comfortably
into Allison's ear her joy in beholding Camilla
safe and well, and her obligations to himself
and his sister.

"And on Monday I shall take her straight
home, away from this dreadful country, and all
these mysterious dangers. Don't you think
that is the wisest plan ? "

" Quite the wisest," answered Allison. " But
we shall miss her very much, shan't we, Guen-
dolen ? "

" Oh, but you must come and see us, both
of you, when you come back. We shall always
feel, Mr. Allison, that we can never be grateful
enough for what you have done for Camilla."

" It is very kind of you to take that view,
but, you see, I did not know Miss Veneroni ;
it was chiefly out of regard for Ladzinski."

" Ah, yes," Mrs. Bush murmured, not quite
so happily.

Allison, suspecting in her an opinion that
what Camilla had really fled from was the suit
of Ladzinski, persisted, —

" Now he has really taken trouble, and run
risks, and suffered terrible anxiety too."

" Yes," said Mrs. Bush, again in the same
uncomfortable tone.

106 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

Allison, lowering his voice and speaking
with the utmost earnestness, continued : " I
think I never met a man whom I liked better
than Ladzinski."

She looked up with an expression which
might, upon a less placid countenance, have
been dismay.

" But a foreigner, Mr, Allison," she whis-
pered.

" Well, of course," Allison admitted, smiling.
" So was Mr. Veneroni, and so, I suppose, in
a way, was Mrs. Veneroni, too."

Mrs. Bush sighed. " Mr. Veneroni," she
remarked, " was quite an exception."

" So is Ladzinski an exception," Allison de-
clared, still smiling, half sorry in spite of him-
self for the poor lady's troublous state, but
fundamentally indignant. Did Camilla, he
wondered, think with equally inadequate ap-
preciation of Ladzinski ? Looking up, he met
his sister's eye. She was looking at him with
an odd mixture of criticism and approval, evi-
dently applied to himself, but not at all addressed
to him. As his mute inquiry reached her brain,
her face changed ; she smiled, and a look of
intelligence answered him. He instantly felt
convinced that Guendolen might be trusted
to see that Camilla did not leave Saragosta
without having given an undisturbed interview

MORE GUESTS 107

to Ladzinski. He glanced across at the pair.
They seemed a little silent, the lively conver-
sation which prevailed at that end of the table
being supported chiefly by Madame Perivier
and the syndic.

He began to wonder how things would be
when Camilla had finally departed. Madame
Perivier, no doubt, would return to " near
Lucca/' and Ladzinski — well, Ladzinski would
certainly not stay in Saragosta. Guendolen
and himself would be left, and the world would
become remarkably empty. It began to be-
come empty already in the mere forecast, and
Madame Perivier, the observant, wondered
what it was that caused Mr. Allison to look sud-
denly so gloomy. Catching her eye, he recol-
lected himself, and began to make civil talk.
A strange unreality attended the prolonged
meal ; the bell from the clock tower had the
note of a bell on the stage. Upstairs in the
big saloon he had still the sensation of playing
a part, and helping to keep up a representation.
It was difficult to believe that no longer ago
than this morning Camilla had told her tale in
a real world to a, really concerned listener.

XI
SUNDAY IN SARAGOSTA

SUNDAY broke clear and bright, with a de-
licious touch of autumn freshness breath-
ing from the distant snowy hills. By soon after
ten o'clock the four young people found them-
selves, without any arts on Allison's part, but
not, he shrewdly suspected, without some on
the part of Madame Perivier and Guendolen,
walking outside the town, not this time upon
the way to Dalarocca. The descending road
was, according to the custom of Italian roads,
straight, but it had abundant by-paths, and the
brother and sister, dropping behind to examine
these, were presently able to lose sight of their
companions. They sat down, after a time, on
a low wall, where green lizards peeped and
darted among the stones ; the cry of a grass-
hopper came up from the fields behind them.

" I thought, from what you said," observed
Guendolen, " that those two were just on the
eve of becoming engaged."

" For all I know, they may be."

108

SUNDAY IN SARAGOSTA 109

"I thought you meant that there was an
understanding."

" I think I said that I could not tell you any-
thing, either way."

"Oh, yes, you said that? Guendolen admitted.

Allison sat silent, not willing to ask in set
terms for his sister's opinion, but quite willing
to afford her an opportunity of volunteering it.
Guendolen, however, said nothing.

" You like her ? " he said presently.

" Very much indeed."

" And you like him, don't you ? "

" I hardly know him. But I own," she
added, after a moment, "that I never saw a
more attractive man. He ought to be made
king of some half-civilized country, where
they would adore him. Does he paint well,
too ? "

Allison drew forth the pencil sketch which
Ladzinski had made on the day of his own
first meeting with Camilla. " Well, that's how
he draws."

" This is awfully good. Who is it ? "

"Oh, I don't know his name," her brother
answered a little awkwardly. " It is just a man
we both saw, and Ladzinski drew him."

" I think I must ask Mr. Ladzinski to show
me his sketch-book," said Guendolen.

" Better not/' advised her brother. " It

no THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

might be rather full of — of Camilla, don't you
know."

" Oh, yes, perhaps," Guendolen answered,
looking up rather absently through the grey
olive branches to the sky.

Within herself she was debating whether to
tell Laurence another love story, the heroine of
which was nearer at hand than Camilla. But
she did not tell it, and when she asked herself
afterwards why she had forborne, she could not
decide whether it was because she felt it unfair
to reveal the suit of a man whom she could
never accept, or because she felt that it might,
some day, be awkward to have confessed pre-
possessions against the man whom she had
married. As for Allison, his mind had gone
back to Camilla's confidences of the day before,
and to the reported advent of a relative claiming
rights over her.

Thus they sat, absorbed in their own thoughts,
and, still absorbed, walked homeward, to find
the mid-day meal on the table, and the other
couple still absent.

"Is Camilla not with you ? " Mrs. Bush
asked, as she saw them enter.

" She is with Mr. Ladzinski," Guendolen
replied. " I should think they will be in soon,
but there are so many little paths to lose one's
way in."

SUNDAY IN SARAGOSTA in

She proceeded to narrate all the little inci-
dents of the walk, and Madame Perivier second-
ing her, they managed to sustain the semblance
of quite a lively conversation. Camilla and
Ladzinski did not appear, a circumstance which
seemed to Allison to augur auspiciously for the
wooer.

The meal ended, he offered himself as an
escort in case Mrs. Bush would care to see the
town and the frescoes of Bernardino. This
expedition, owing to the slowness of the lady's
pace and the fulness of the gentleman's com-
mentaries, prolonged itself until nearly three
o'clock. The saloon on their return was empty,
half darkened by the closing of shutters and
agreeably cool. A great calm reigned through-
out the house.

"I think," said Mrs. Bush, "that every one
must be taking a little nap."

Allison noted a sympathetic cadence in her
voice, and discreetly left her to the empty room
and the arm-chair.

In his own room lay a letter staring at him
from the table. As he went hastily forward he
saw that the writing was Ladzinski's. In the
stillness of the drowsy afternoon he opened it,
and read with amazement : —

" I congratulate you. You have succeeded

ii2 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

completely. I had no suspicions, and the blow
has fallen upon me entirely unprepared. I shall
leave this afternoon, and hope^never to see either
of you again. Even though you have won and
I have lost, I would not change places with
you. — S. L."

Allison stared at the letter blankly. Could
Ladzinski suppose him to be in any way an-
swerable for Camilla's refusal, if this meant
that Camilla had refused him ? He must see
Ladzinski instantly. With the letter in his
hand he hurried to his fellow-traveller's room.

An open portmanteau was spread upon the
table; Ladzinski, standing behind it, lifted a
face of pale severity.

" What does this mean ? " demanded the
Englishman, holding out the letter. " I don't
understand in the least"

It would have been difficult to express in
words an incredulity so contemptuous as
was indicated in the coldness of Ladzinski's
countenance, and the slight movement of his
shoulders.

Allison began to feel a certain difficulty in
keeping his temper. " What is it that you
mean ? " he impatiently repeated.

Ladzinski visibly strove to preserve his
haughty silence, failed, and cried with sudden

SUNDAY IN SARAGOSTA 113

fierceness : " Don't be a coward ! Don't affect
to misunderstand. At least accept and answer
for your own acts."

Stopping himself as suddenly as he had
broken out, he bent again over his portman-
teau.

Allison stood for a moment, carefully choos-
ing his next words.

" Look here, Ladzinski, you are under some
mistake. Speak out and tell me plainly what
you think you have against me."

"I have against you," answered Ladzinski,
" that you have won from me the woman you
knew I loved."

"No," protested Allison; "no," and for a
moment was debarred by the unexpected com-
motion of his own feelings from shaping any
more precise denial.

" I assure you most earnestly," he presently
proceeded, " that no word of the sort has ever
passed between Miss Veneroni and myself."

" But she owned——" began Ladzinski, and
stopped.

Allison was aware of something like the
thrust of a dagger, and of an instant bewilder-
ing recognition that this poignant emotion was
not pain but joy. The habit of calm demean-
our, so invaluable in moments of agitation,
enabled him, nevertheless, to say with dull

H

ii 4 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

persistence : " Not that I cared for her, or she
for me ; of that I am certain."

" She owned," returned Ladzinski, speaking
with evident difficulty and reluctance, " that she
had a stronger affection — that she was bound
by other claims. And a month ago there were
none — and whom has she seen since ? "

Daylight broke upon Allison's understanding,
and he told himself, with an immense sinking
of the spirit, that he had been a blinded
fool. i{ Other claims— a stronger affection ! " yes,
for her country, for her " cause " ; that was clear
enough — but how to make it clear to Ladzinski ?
She had distinctly forbidden him to speak ; and
had expressly excluded Ladzinski. To betray
her trust was impossible ; he must entreat her
to be frank herself. Oh, but that ! Could he
do that ? Reveal that he knew her answer to
her other lover ? He stopped short, self-con-
victed by the mentally conceived word " other."
No, he could not speak to Camilla ; it would be
better if he could avoid the necessity of ever
speaking to her again.

Ladzinski stood observing his confusion and
silence.

" You did not suppose," said he with a sneer,
" that she would have said that ? v

" She never would have said it," Allison
stoutly declared, "if she could have guessed

SUNDAY IN SARAGOSTA 115

how you would misinterpret it. If the most
'distant thought of me had ever entered her
head, she would have seen that there might
be a misunderstanding, and would not have
used those words. You must speak to her
again, Ladzinski ; you must insist upon hearing
her real meaning."

Ladzinski, leaning a hand on each end of his
portmanteau, stood gazing at him steadily.

" Do you see any other meaning ? " he slowly
asked. " If so, why don't you tell me ? "

Allison drew a long breath.

" Yes," he said boldly ; " I know another
meaning. Something Miss Veneroni told me
yesterday explains it; but she gave me no
permission to tell any one else. This, however,
I may say : there was nothing which need make
any permanent division between her and you."

The intentness with which Ladzinski listened
seemed to draw the blood from his face. As
Allison ceased, he suffered his hands to relax
their grasp and to drop with a slight hopeless
gesture.

" You say that, and you own at the same
time that she speaks freely to you of what
she hides from me."

" Exactly — because I am not her lover and
you are. Why, man, the very openness with
which she talks to me, as easily ' as if I were

n6 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

Guendolen, while she is silent and shy with
you, shows that she never had a thought of
me." He hastily stifled an inapposite sigh.
"Come, Ladzinski, you may find it easy to
doubt me — you haven't known me so long —
but at least you know Miss Veneroni. Can you
seriously suppose her capable of joining with
me or with any person on earth to wound and
deceive her old friend ? "

Ladzinski, whose attention had hung on every
word, now moved away uncertainly, and sank
without replying into the single chair of the
large bare room. It seemed to Allison that he
had never beheld human suffering so intense
as upon this pale and restrained countenance.
Forgetting altogether that his was the part of
aggrieved innocence, he sprang forward, moved
partly by a compassion so warm as to simulate
remorse and partly by sheer irritation at the
unnecessariness of all this pain.

"Well, I can't help it if you won't believe
me," he cried impatiently.

Ladzinski caught his hand. - " I do believe
you," he exclaimed, and proceeded to address
to himself several opprobrious names.

" That's all right," said Allison pacifically.
" But if I were you I would not think of going
away without getting a full explanation. Time
is pretty short. I wonder where she is now.

SUNDAY IN SARAGOSTA 117

She is not in the drawing-room. Shall I go
and see whether she is with Guendolen?"

Receiving by way of answer a grateful look,
he sped down the long corridor to his sister's
room, and knocked. Guendolen came to open
the door, and he saw the room empty behind
her.

" Oh — Miss Veneroni isn't here ? "

"No; has she come in yet?"

"Why, yes — at least, I suppose so; Lad-
zinski is in."

"She did not come in with him."

11 Not ? But then — just go and find out
whether she is in the house, there's a good
girl."

She went, and in a few minutes returned, her
face grave.

" Camilla is not in the house."

Her brother uttered an exclamation, and
hurried back to Ladzinski's room.

" Did not Miss Veneroni come in with you ?"
he asked abruptly.

" No," answered Ladzinski.

" She isn't in the house. Guendolen thinks
she has never come in."

" What ! " cried Ladzinski, starting up.

" Was she far away when you parted from
her ? "

" No, »not at all ; about a quarter of a mile

n8 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

from Saragosta, on the main road. She could
not miss the way; but she may have been
hurt; there may have been an accident. Let
us go at once."

In the corridor they found Guendolen wait-
ing, who begged to go with them.

Full of apprehensions, the three young
people stepped out into the warm-breathing
Italian afternoon, and walked briskly to the
spot where Ladzinski had last seen Camilla.
It was a stretch of open road, with a rough
pasture on one hand and a walled- in olive
plantation on the other.

"It was here that I turned off," said Lad-
zinski, indicating a path across the pasture.
" She was walking straight homeward. She
had her parasol over her head. I lost sight
of her at that little bend of the road.!'

They looked that way, the impression of her
presence so strong upon them that they could
almost believe themselves to behold the slim
figure still upon the road, and shimmering
lights, lilac and golden, glancing from the
open parasol.

The three stood, not knowing what next to
do.

"She is not on this road," said Allison at
last. "She is not at Saragosta. Now here's
a sort of path here, on the left "

SUNDAY IN SARAGOSTA 119

11 1 went by that," said Ladzinski. "It
leads past a house, into a road parallel with
this, and into Saragosta by the other gate/'

" You heard no sounds ? "

" None."

" Was there any one else upon the road ? "

" Not then. A good many people passed us
earlier, coming, I suppose, from the church.
The last person who passed us was a well-
dressed man, whom I noticed because he
rather stared at Camilla."

"An Italian?"

" Oh, yes, certainly. Not a young man —
handsome."

An idea shot through Allison's brain.

" I wonder whether it is possible — you re-
member the man I saw in the church, Ladzin-
ski, that first day ? — the man who was
speaking to this}"

The little sketch of the " agent " came out
again, and was followed by an old brown
carte-de-visite photograph.

" Look, Ladzinski ; look carefully. Was he
at all like that ? "

Ladzinski looked attentively.

" Yes," he pronounced at last ; " there is
certainly a likeness. But he was not this
man ; he was younger, and he had no beard.
Who is this ? "

126 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

"This is Miss Veneroni's father. I was
struck when I first saw it by a resemblance to
the man in the church. Now, only yesterday,
just before you came, Sacchetti had been to
tell us of a gentleman having gone to Casello,
saying he was her cousin, and wanting to take
her away."

" Ah ! " murmured Ladzinski, under his
breath,

" Could you draw the man, Ladzinski ? "

" I could give an idea of him, with the
photograph to help/'

"We will make Sacchetti show it to the
farmer at Casello. ,,

11 But surely, Laurence," interposed Guen-
dolen, who had listened with gathering
amazement, " you don't really think any one
could have the insolence to dare to carry off
Camilla — here on the high road — at ten
minutes' distance from the town ? "

" My dear girl, I don't believe Miss
Veneroni would go off of her own accord,
without a word to any of us. In fact, she
said to me, yesterday, that she would not.
Now, if she did not go of her own will, she
must have been made to go against her will.
We know that she was kept at Casello against
her will, and that I saw a man whom I suspect
of being her relation apparently in confidential

SUNDAY IN SARAGOSTA 121

communication with the person who took her
to Casello. We also know that a man profess-
ing to, be her relation went to Casello, three
days ago, expecting to find her there ; and we
know very well that her wealth at her own
disposal might make her relatives anxious to
get hold of her."

" Well, but this isn't the way to do it," said
Guendolen, still mightily indignant. "They
can't suppose that Camilla would ever for-
give their behaving like this."

" They don't know her, you see ; they might
think they could frighten her."

" You may be right," said Ladzinski. " But
I still believe that Menosotti has had a hand
in it. However, let us inquire about this man ;
and let us also search for any traces of her.
She left a sign before."

" They would have to take her in some sort
of carriage," remarked Guendolen.

"You are right, Miss Allison. A carriage
can be traced, and it has to keep to the main
roads. Let us go on, and inquire at every
house whether a carriage has passed."

They walked on, every eye on the watch for
some token.

At the first house Ladzinski went in, and
returned shaking a despondent head.

Again they walked on.

122 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

From the second house Ladzinski came
forth transfigured.

"Give me the photograph," he cried.
" Quick ! And a letter — a card — anything
that I can draw upon."

Allison produced the photograph, and Guen-
dolen a card-case, from which she handed to
Ladzinski a couple of thick, unglazed English
visiting cards.

He dashed back into the house, and the
brother and sister stood expectant in the road.
In two or three minutes he rejoined them.

"He stayed there ; he has been there for
four days, and about three hours ago he came
in, paid his bill, and left. His name was
Neroni."

" And the carriage ? " Guendolen asked, as
they walked on. " Had they seen any
carriage ? "

" Two or three ; they say that is always the
case on Sunday."

They arrived at a bifurcation of the road,
and hesitated, looking this way and that for
guidance.

Suddenly Guendolen gave a little cry.

" Look ! " she said, and pointed along the
left-hand turning.

In an olive-tree by the roadside hung
Camilla's parasol.

XII
THE CAPTURE OF CAMILLA

IF Ladzinski had been a prudent or a prac-
tised lover, he would have known better
than to employ an outdoor scene as the back-
ground of his declaration. The prudent lover
foresees, and the practised lover knows by ex-
perience, that if his lady should refuse him,
there will be a certain awkwardness about walk-
ing home with her afterwards, and that if she
should accept him he will probably find himself
debarred from sealing his success by a kiss.
The course of Ladzinski not having been
guided by these sage considerations, there came
a moment in which, after having heard Camilla
avow, as he believed, her preference for another
man, he found himself still a couple of miles
from Saragosta, obviously obliged to walk with
her for those two miles, and in a state of feel-
ing which absolutely precluded the utterance of
a civil word.

The pair walked on in silence and embarrass-

123

i2 4 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

ment The emotion of Ladzinski was, for the
moment, almost entirely one of resentment ; he
felt himself wronged, tricked, played upon.
Camilla, being quite unsuspicious of the mean-
ing attributed to her words, felt no sort of self-
reproach. She was only sorry for Severyn, her
old friend, whom indeed she loved very much,
but tranquilly, and with none of the ardour
which rendered inspiring the idea of suffering
or of dying for her father's country. It was
really a great mistake of Severyn's to think
that she could make him happy, she whose
heart was so firmly set upon other aims. She
stole a glance at him from under her eyelashes,
and was almost frightened. That implacable
countenance showed her an unsuspected side of
the character which she had supposed herself
to know. She realized all at once — what the
average parent finds so hard to realize — that to
have known the boy, however exhaustively, is
not necessarily to know the whole of the man.

This angry presence at her side oppressed
her. She stood still.

" Pray don't feel bound to walk back with
me, Severyn," she said. " The road is per-
fectly safe."

She spoke in tones carefully gentle, almost
apologetic. He looked at her with a certain
stern contempt.

THE CAPTURE OF CAMILLA 125

" I will walk behind you," he replied.
" When you are within ten minutes of the hotel,
I will relieve you of my presence altogether."

It was Camilla's turn now to be hurt, and in
a flash she was as desirous to give him pain
as a moment earlier she had been to spare
him.

"As you please," she said haughtily, and
walked on.

The feeling of his eyes upon her kept up the
sense of oppression ; the inclination to turn and
look round became stronger at every step.
Her temper, quick to be aroused, was quick also
to be appeased. Before long the desire to meet
a look which, if not forgiving, should be at
least not unfriendly, began to urge her like
a voice at her ear. The sound of his foot
behind her ceased. She turned and saw him
standing at a distance of some dozen paces,
and evidently about to turn aside across the
pasture. She made a little movement of the
hand; he might take it for a summons or a
farewell, as he would.

He replied by a grave and perfectly cere-
monious bow, and stepped into his pathway.
She did not guess — though Guendolen in her
place would have guessed it — that when she had
again turned and was walking on, he sprang
back into the road, and stood watching her

126 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

until she disappeared. Nor did he guess that
under the shelter of the gay parasol the tears
were running down her cheeks.

Presently she heard a step behind her. Her
heart began to beat faster. Had Severyn re-
lented, and was he coming after her ? The
step came nearer ; an unrecognized voice said :
" Signorina Veneroni."

Camilla's hesitation fell from her like a
dropped handkerchief. She turned, calm,
ready for some message or some summons.
Her resolution was instantly formed, not under
any circumstances to leave Saragosta without
forewarning her friends, or without confiding to
Allison precisely whither and why she was
going. It was quite characteristic of her that
the possibility of such confidences placing the
young man in an embarrassing position never
occurred to her.

She found herself face to face with a man
wearing an unknown uniform, too little adorned
to seem military, too severe for a private livery.
Without further ado this functionary explained
that his business was to arrest her.

Camilla was surprised, but this was not an
emergency of a kind to agitate her. She
asked calmly upon what charge, and was told
upon that of conspiring against the king and
government of Italy.

THE CAPTURE OF CAMILLA 127

" Where is your order, your authority ? "
she asked. " I suppose you have some such
thing: 1

A paper was unfolded before her, bearing at
its head various intricate heraldic devices, at
its foot an autograph and several seals. Be-
tween, in a flowing clerkly hand, appeared an
order for the arrest of Camilla Veneroni, aged
twenty, lately living in England. She returned
the paper.

" I may as well tell you," she remarked,
" that I am an English subject."

" That is not for me to judge," returned the
man. " I have but to obey my orders."

" I suppose I may communicate with my
friends, who are English, and are here at the
Hotel Corona d' Italia, close by ? "

" I have no authority for any such permis-

• ft
sion.

" But I shall find a means," Camilla thought,
"to let Mr. Allison know."

" What do you wish me to do ? " she asked.

" A carriage is waiting at a few minutes'
distance."

" And if I refuse to go ? "

"It would be useless ; I have helpers within
call. The signorina will surely understand that
she must submit to the law."

" I submit to the law of the strongest — for

128 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

the moment," said Camilla. " Where is your
carriage ? "

As she sat, a few minutes later, in the carri-
age, and was conveyed at rather a deliberate
pace along the road, her active mind was busy
in considering by what means she should leave
a sign for those who would come after her.
The carriage turned aside to the left. Camilla,
leaning suddenly from the window, cast her
parasol out and upward. Then making a feint
of trying to open the door, " Oh, my parasol ! "
she cried. " Do let me get my parasol ! "

The man, as she had fully expected, saw in
this manoeuvre only a clumsy pretext for getting
out of the vehicle, and instead of acceding,
called to the driver to go faster.

The parasol remained hanging, and Camilla
was carried onward. On her own account her
mind was fairly easy : she had no compromising
papers about her ; on the other hand, she had
money, brought with her when she first set out
upon her adventures, and safely stitched into a
double lining of her dress. She was convinced
that an Englishwoman could not be long re-
tained in Italian imprisonment, while as to
temporary inconveniences and hardships, her
eager spirit rather rejoiced in them. When,
however, she considered the uneasiness of her
friends at Saragosta, she did feel disturbed, and

THE CAPTURE OF CAMILLA 129

her heart softened in contemplation of what
Severyn would certainly suffer. Deep in these
reflections, and with a mind made up not to
attempt escape until such time as the carriage
should stop, she had given no great heed to
the road, or to the time that had elapsed.

She was roused by the stopping of the carri-
age. Her mind sprang into alertness. A man
came to the window — a man not young, and
of distinguished appearance. Camilla's escort
sprang up, in apparent anger.

" You are the officer in charge of the Sig-
norina Veneroni," the stranger said politely.
" The signorina is being conveyed to Florence.
Her destination is now to be changed. If you
read this, you will see that the minister has
granted permission to me, the signorina's
nearest relation, to take charge of her."

Camilla, who had at first supposed some
mere legal formality to be in course of trans-
action, was now fully aroused. Leaning for-
ward eagerly she fixed her eyes upon this
professing kinsman, and in this first moment of
surprise, distinguished little beyond an instantly
perceptible likeness to her father. She was
sure at once of the kindred, and the certainty
brought with it a warm gladness, a sense of
home-coming.

" Let me," said he, " make myself known to

1

130 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

you. I am your cousin, Ottavio Veneroni, the
only son of your father's brother, Francesco."

The officer of justice, having inspected the
paper handed to him, became meekly deferen-
tial. Stepping from the carriage, he invited the
new-comer, by the title of " Signor Marchese,"
to enter. The Signor Marchese did so, and
the carriage once more proceeded. Camilla,
who had accepted her arrest so calmly, was
greatly fluttered by this new development.
The possibility of arrest had been always in
her calculations ; this intervention came from a
world outside her reckonings. She gazed wide-
eyed at her cousin Ottavio, and found him a
relative of singularly presentable exterior.
Youth indeed he had left behind, but he had
not yet reached the age when the years take
more than they bring. He had the features of
a fine Roman ftiedal, the dark, watchful eye and
deeply waved dark hair — but threaded with a
line or two of white — of a fine early Italian
portrait, and that peculiar grace in the carriage
of a contemporary coat and collar that belongs
to the modern Italian alone.

Turning to her with a smile at once grave
and gracious, he said, " I am very sorry, my
dear cousin, that our meeting should be among
circumstances so disquieting. You may, how-
ever, put aside all further alarm. I have the

THE CAPTURE OF CAMILLA 131

minister's assurance that no steps will be taken
as long as you remain quietly with your family."

" You are very kind," murmured Camilla,
vaguely.

" I must not conceal from you," the marquis
continued, " that you have been in serious
danger. The whole of your dealings with
Bertoni are known to the Government If I
had not been so fortunate as to possess some
influence, you would probably have been im-
prisoned for life."

Camilla could not believe that any such
danger had ever been imminent, but she for-
bore to express an incredulity that diminished
her cousin's services. This glimpse, however,
of unknown agencies working, behind her back,
for and against her, gave a sudden sensation of
fetters and powerlessness. In the imagined
world of Camilla, Camilla was always supreme
directress. To be handed over, however
advantageously, and to however benevolently
minded a cousin, was something of a humilia-
tion. Yet she was pleased, too, with the man,
if not with the situation. Bertoni had been a
companion whom she could never have been
proud to acknowledge ; it would be with grati-
fication that she would make known the mar-
quis to any of her friends. On the heels of
that reflection came another. Turning eagerly

132 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

to him, she said : u Oh, my friends at Sara-
gosta, who will be so uneasy ! Pray let me go
back at once to Saragosta."

He gently shook his head.

" I am to keep you in my house, under my
care ; that is the condition."

" Oh — h — ," said Camilla, startled, almost
alarmed.

Then, recovering herself, " But at least I
may write to them ? "

The marquis threw out his hands with a
deprecating gesture. " I am in despair at
being obliged to refuse you."

Camilla's face fell.

Taking her hand, he besought her not to be
distressed.

" Surely you are not afraid to trust yourself
with your own nearest relative ? "

11 Oh, it is not that. It is of them I am
thinking.*'

" Perhaps by-and-by it may be permitted to
us to communicate with them ; for the present
we must repay the favour granted to us by
absolute submission. ,,

Absolute submission was a state by no means
congenial to Camilla's temperament. She
turned away her face, and would have drawn
away her hand, but her cousin kept it and lifted
it to his lips.

THE CAPTURE OF CAMILLA 133

u My whole endeavour," he said, "shall be to
make up to you for the pleasures and gaieties
from which you will be cut off. If I were free
to follow my own wishes, it would be my pride
and joy to show to all Rome a kinswoman
whom everybody must envy me."

" You are very kind," Camilla murmured for
the second time.

And indeed she was touched by all this care
and solicitude bestowed spontaneously upon an
unknown cousin. The family relation had not
been largely prominent in her life, and she
seemed to see a new element flowing in, joyful
and welcome, but not yet clear. The thought
weighed on her that her cousin, if he really
knew her, would not like her, and that their
views of life were probably quite incompatible.
We all know the sense of unwilling imposture
forced upon us by kind people who assume as a
matter of course that our faiths are like their
own. By such a sense was Camilla discom-
forted, and the frankness of her disposition set
her seeking the impossible form of words which
should proclaim her true self. Nor did she
seem to herself quite candid in having let pass
his assumption that she would long be a resi-
dent in his house. Prolonged residence under
even the mildest and kindest of restraints was
by no means within the schemes of Camilla,

134 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

and her secret rebellion against it was fortified
by thoughts of British Consuls, having behind
them a Lord Chancellor and all the ponderous
national machinery which would be set in
motion by the clamour of her friends.

She turned towards him, and met a gaze so
concentrated that it discomposed her, and drew
from her the unwonted and most unwilling
acknowledgment of a blush. She turned away
again, without having spoken.

After a time the carriage stopped, and
Camilla, who saw no house, wondered whether
they could possibly have come to their journey's
end. In a minute or two the driver came to
the window, bringing bread and wine.

"You must be hungry," the marquis said.
11 1 am sorry that nothing better can be got
here in the mountains than this bread of the
country."

Camilla declared truly that she liked this
bread. Never had anything tasted better to
her than this sweet, dark- coloured slice, eaten
on the open road, among the scent of the pine
trees. It occurred to her to wonder whether
this democratic taste appeared plebeian in the
eyes of the marquis. He did not himself con-
descend to eat of this peasants' bread, but by-
and-by took a very little wine. When the meal
was finished, the driver, who had shared a slice

THE CAPTURE OF CAMILLA 135

fraternally with his steed, carried away the loaf
and the various vessels to some house unseen
among the trees.

Again the carriage rolled forward, and the
rays began to fall aslant through the tree-stems.
A few words had been spoken on each part.
Once a little bell was heard tinkling — from
some chapel, Camilla supposed — but she saw
nothing. The lengthening afternoon seemed to
grow into some prolonged tract of life ; it would
have been hardly strange to find her clothes
grown ragged at its close, or her hair grey. And
still, throughout these lengthening hours the
man beside her filled not only her bodily but
her mental horizon. In her immediate future
she could see nothing but two aspects of the
marquis — the one, his Roman profile, with the
dominant, disquieting mouth and chin ; the other,
his intent gaze, which seemed to turn her into
a captive under the eye of a conqueror.

She was very grateful to him, and in some
mysterious way flattered by his very presence ;
but there were moments in which she could have
found it in her heart to regret that she had not
been left in the hands of the Italian law.

XIII
THE MARCHESA SERAFINA

THE carriage containing Camilla and her
new cousin stood still at last before an
arched door in a white wall. The marquis
stepped out, opened the door with a key, and
offered his hand to Camilla. She, a little stiff
from the long drive, descended with something
less than her usual alacrity. There was
nothing to be seen but the wall, the road, and
the carriage, with its tired and panting horse.
The marquis led her through the door and
locked it behind them. Within was a sort ot
quadrangle, grass-grown and intersected by
flagged pathways. On two sides were build-
ings ; the third was formed by the inner side of
the wall ; and the fourth partly by a wing of
the house and partly by a short stretch of open
cloister, through which she had a glimpse of a
somewhat desolate garden. The afternoon sun
did not succeed in imparting gaiety to this

prospect. An air of neglect and desolation lay

136

THE MARCHESA SERAFINA 137

heavy on the whole enclosure, where no warm
breath seemed to linger of human habita-
tion.

Camilla received at once an impression of
her family's impoverishment and decay, and
the impression deepened as she followed the
marquis along the grey pathway, across an
empty hall, and up a staircase where dust lay
thick in every crevice of the carved marble.
A door on the first landing admitted them to a
vast and chilly apartment, where at the farther
end sat a hard-featured lady, clothed in black,
who appeared to be about fifty-five years old.
She eyed with attention Camilla's progress up
the room, but neither spoke nor smiled.
Camilla felt herself presented like a captive
at the shrine of some stern idol.

The marquis addressed this lady as " my
dear aunt," and with various little compli-
mentary formulas, which in English would
sound pompous and insincere, but in Italian
were graceful and almost essential, presented
Camilla to her, and explained to the new-
comer that this was her aunt, the Marchesa
Serafina Veneroni. At this oddly inapposite
Christian name, the corners of Camilla's mouth
rose in an involuntary smile.

The marchesa, in flowery terms and in a
chilling voice, expressed her satisfaction ;

138 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

Camilla, unable to feel any great delight in
making acquaintance with a lady so austere,
merely murmured a vague gratitude.

A pause followed, broken at last by a
suggestion from the marquis that Camilla
might like to see her room. He rang a bell,
and after that somewhat prolonged interval
which always marks Italian service, an elderly
maid appeared. She was dressed, like her
mistress, in black, and something indefinably
conventual about her aspect assured Camilla
that she was a person active in religious
observances.

The room to which she was now conducted
was smaller and much more amply furnished
than the saloon. It possessed lace curtains,
comfortable chairs, a modern-looking bed,
and a vast wardrobe. A dressing-gown hung
over the end of the bedstead ; there were
brushes and scent-bottles on the dressing-table,
and a pair of new slippers beside it Over the
looking-glass hung a rosary. From all these
tokens of habitation, Camilla concluded either
that this was the room of the marchioness, or
that there was some other lady living in the
house.

Marietta, the maid, threw open the wardrobe
doors and observed that she believed every-
thing the marchesina could need would be

THE MARCHESA SERAFINA 139

found there. Camilla beheld, neatly folded on
the shelves, a small but sufficient store of
garments ; and, hanging in another division, a
couple of gowns.

" But these are not mine," said she, and was
informed that they had been prepared for her
arrival.

Left alone, she proceeded with a very
natural curiosity to examine the dresses.
One was a morning dress of grey wool, the
other was of dark silk ; both bore the mark of
a well-known Parisian house, and both were
evidently quite new. Camilla, closing the
door and turning away, caught the reflection
of her own countenance, and was obliged to
laugh at its look of amazement.

Then she looked out of the window, which
was so high that she could only reach it by
standing on a chair, and finally, she sat down
to consider with infinite astonishment the
position in which she found herself.

Marietta presently re-appearing, announced
that dinner was ready, and Camilla very will-
ingly followed to another spacious apartment
where a fine Venetian chandelier, its brilliance
subdued by dust, hung above a somewhat
scanty dining-table. The repast was excellent ;
she did full justice to it, and felt her rebellious
energies rising cheerfully once more. The

i 4 o THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

marquis was almost oppressively attentive to
her every need ; his aunt, on the other hand,
treated her rather as if she were a child in
disgrace. The meal being over, the elder
lady fixed her eye upon the younger and
rose-
Camilla followed docilely to the saloon, on
the other side of the landing, in which they
had at first met The marchioness invited her
to be seated.

" This is, I think, " said she, " the first time
that you have seen any of your relations in
Italy."

" Yes."

" Your father must however have spoken to
you of them."

" I knew that my father had two brothers,
called Luca and Francesco, that my grand-
father was dead, and that my father had
allowed his brother to succeed."

" Your father could not have done otherwise.
He was an outlaw."

Camilla, who thought it advisable to keep
her English nationality well in sight, replied
after a moment : " And his country having
renounced him, he made himself a citizen of
another and a freer country."

The marchioness appeared a little startled.
11 What ! " said she ; and then recovering her-

THE MARCHESA SERAFINA 141

self, — "but a native country cannot be re-
nounced."

She paused as if waiting for contradiction,
but none was given.

" Your father's brother, the Marchese Luca,"
she presently resumed, " was my husband." She
made a rapid sign of the cross, and a rapid
silent movement of the lips. " And the
Marchesino Francesco was the father of the
present marchese ; they are both dead. There
are also sisters, one of whom is the Superior of
a convent. There remain of the family but
yourself and the marchese.' '

Camilla with a sudden return of loyalty to a
family whose existence she had seldom con-
sidered, reflected that the marquis in failing
to marry had neglected a duty.

"It was," continued the marchioness, " with
the deepest concern and anxiety that we heard
of your escapade. For myself, I must confess
that I was inclined at first to think no excuse
or pardon possible. It was my opinion that
you ought to be placed at once under the
charge of your aunt in "the convent at Arano.
But the marquis, who has seen more than I of
foreign customs, was more willing to make
excuses for you. He it was who went to
Rome, put your case in the best light to the
minister, pleaded your youth and your ignor-

i 4 2 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

ance, and obtained — with great difficulty —
permission to intervene for your release." She
paused, looked hard at her hearer, and called
up a smile. " Can you not think of any way
of repaying him ? "

Camilla had a giddy sensation of depths
opening before her feet ; a sudden distrust of
the marchioness and of the marquis sprang up
fully armed.

" What do you mean ? " she asked bluntly.

The marchioness laid a hand on hers.

" I understand you, my dear," said she.
"You think that such proposals should not
be made to yourself, but to your friends. But
consider : I am your friend, your relative ; it is
through me that it comes, and I will answer
for you."

" You are quite mistaken," returned Camilla.
" I asked what you meant because it seemed
incredible that a man who never saw me until
to-day could think of marrying me. If such
a proposal were to be made to me seriously,
I should not dream of letting any second
person answer for me."

" Such a proposal is made to you seriously,"
said the marchioness.

Camilla drew herself up.

" I suppose," she returned after a moment,
and hesitating a little, "that the marquis,

THE MARCHESA SERAFINA 143

seeing me in danger, generously wishes to
provide this effectual protection for me. I am
very grateful ; but I could never consent to
accept such a sacrifice, "

11 Sacrifice ! " cried the marchioness, with
some vehemence. " It is the marchese's dear-
est wish."

"I cannot believe that; I cannot see any
reason why, " Camilla protested.

" Do you never look in the glass ? " said
the marchioness. " Surely you might find
a reason there.' '

This explanation was even less acceptable to
the girl than the other, and she replied in a
cooler tone : "In that case, regard for the
marquis as well as for myself would oblige me
to decline. He knows nothing about me, and
would find too late that he had made a terrible
mistake."

" You do not know the marquis," the lady
began.

" I do not," Camilla quickly interposed.
"That is the very reason why a marriage
between us is out of the question."

" But you will know him," the marchioness

persisted, " after you have been here with us a

ittle time." Camilla started. " And besides, it

is all folly, this notion of knowing a husband

beforehand. What can be known is his family,

i 4 4 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

his position, and his appearance. You will
never have a finer position offered you than
this;'

Camilla's resolution had gathered firmness,
and her patience was wearing a little thin.

"It will perhaps save trouble," said she, " to
say distinctly, once for all, that I refuse abso-
lutely to marry the Marchese Veneroni."

"You would prefer to be handed back to
the police ?"

"I should very much prefer it," Camilla
answered calmly.

" You would prefer ! You would prefer ! It
is not asked what young girls would prefer.
You will do what is decided for you by your
elders and wisers."

Camilla made no answer. She was deter-
mining that she would have to come to plain
speech with the marquis himself. Dispute
with this overbearing lady was worse than
useless. •

The marchioness was still talking vehe-
mently.

"If you think that you will be allowed again
to behave as you have behaved — to disgrace
our name, to endanger your own life — No, you
are here, and you will remain here until you
have taken the step laid down for you. You
appear entirely to misapprehend your position.

THE MARCHESA SERAFINA 145

You are the daughter of an Italian house, and
you will be ruled by the head of the house."

" And with your permission," said Camilla,
rising, " I prefer to take his orders at first
hand."

She walked out of the room and paused a
moment on the landing. The sudden thought
occurred to her that perhaps it might be
possible to escape at once. She ran lightly
down the wide staircase, across the hall, where
she found no servant, and into the quadrangle.
Of the outer gate she felt no hope, but she
tried it and found it locked. It was the moment
of the sudden Italian sunset, and a thin dark-
ness dropped like a veil as she crossed towards
the arcade and descended into the melancholy
garden. In a very few minutes this darkness
seemed to melt into starlight, and she could see
the main features of the scene. A high wall
ran round the garden ; the thin tinkle of a
thread of water still dripped into the chipped
and greenish basin of a fountain ; tall ranks of
shrubs rose dark beside the pale pathways ;
here and there were stone benches with rolled
ends, like the pseudo-classic settees of the first
empire. Solitude, expectancy, enchantment
brooded. Camilla, full of tumultuous rebellion,
felt these influences like a tightening net. Her
breath came fast ; the words of the marchioness

K

146 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

rang in her indignant ears, and kept the
hammers of her heart beating. Hastily she
examined the wall, and found it to be every-
where of a height far beyond any climbing
powers of hers. No old tree grew near enough
to afford a step ; no bench was planted close to
it Sadly she turned back towards the house.
Was there no other way out than this ? In the
court there was only the door by which the
marquis had let her in. She had seen the key
of that returned to his own pocket, but probably
there was another key. Was there a porter
who kept that ? Would it be possible to watch
in the garden for some chance opening of the
door, and to rush through it ? She stood in the
striped shadow of the colonnade, looking with
longing eyes at the locked door. Suddenly
an impulse came upon her, something that
n eared the unreason of panic, and she fled
like a thing pursued up the staircase.

Behind the locked door of her own room she
sat down breathless and began to be amazed at
her own tremors. The marchioness was an
unreasonable and prejudiced woman, but her

nephew Camilla's mind stopped short. She

found herself unable to frame with any con-
fidence a reassuring opinion of the marquis, but
as she cooled she began to regain some degree
of confidence in Camilla Veneroni. After all,

THE MARCHESA SERAFINA 147

the decision remained unalterably with her. At
the very worst, these tiresome relatives could
but keep her here, resisting their persuasions,
until her friends discovered her.

Had Mr. Allison, she wondered, told her
story to the others ? As things now were, that
would be the course she would wish taken ; but
remembering the strictness of her own pro-
hibition she felt sure that Allison would not feel
himself allowed to take it. Perhaps, since he
knew Bertoni by sight, though not by name, he
would trace him out and appeal for help to
him. That idea afforded her no great solace or
encouragement. Daily association had slowly
sapped her faith in Bertoni, and without any
defined or conscious change of front, she now
thoroughly distrusted him. Her hope was in
Allison and in Allison only.

She leaned back in her chair, looked round
this room, already so familiar, — her prison and
her refuge — and yielded to the sense of weari-
ness. High up beyond her window was a sky
coloured as no English sky is coloured, like the
heart of the darkest of sapphires, and with stars
in it that shone not yellow but silver. No
English star would ever again, she thought,
look to her quite free from murkiness.

Suddenly a wonder shot through her whether
this house were an old possession of her family,

148 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

and whether her father had looked up at this
dome of darkened ultramarine and the whiteness
of these stars. The thought brought warmth
about her, and she ceased to feel her prison
so oppressive.

XIV
THE SUIT OF THE MARQUIS

IT was not until the mid-day breakfast on
the morrow that Camilla again saw her
relatives. The civilities of Italian intercourse
were observed, a little scantily by the mar-
chioness, very amply by her nephew.

Camilla, resolutely unabashed, presently told
the marquis that she should be glad of some
conversation with him by-and-by, about her
own affairs.

He gave a fervent assent, and turned upon
her a smile so emphatic and so glowing as
rather to discompose her; she was almost
grateful for the harshly interrupting voice of
the marchioness.

" I think it right," she broke in, " to warn
you, Ottavio, against such an interview. The
marchesina is simply reckoning upon her
power over you to persuade you to her
wishes."

M9

i5o THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

The marquis lifted his hand.

" My dear aunt," he said, " permit me to be
the judge of my conduct"

He had not raised his voice by a semi-tone,
or hastened it by the beat of a semi-quaver ;
but the warmth of his tone to Camilla was re-
placed by an icy dullness. More than ever,
in this mood, he filled the stage ; but with a
presence that provoked rather antagonism than
sympathy. Camilla's instant thought was of
the intolerability of such a tone in a husband.
Then, relenting a little, she told herself that
the marchioness was a relative whose cumu-
lative powers of irritation could probably not
be gauged by a sample, and who might, not
improbably, require, exceptional measures of
repression.

For the moment the lady was completely
subdued, and offered bread in the meekest
manner to her English niece. Meekly also,
when the meal was over, she rose and retired.

The marquis conducted Camilla to a smaller
room, which had by way of furniture a hand-
some, unfriendly table of coloured marbles, and
three gilded chairs. In one of these she was
installed ; the marquis stood before her by the
table.

As he stood there, looking at her, her pur-
pose all at once loomed difficult ; she was

THE SUIT OF THE MARQUIS 151

obliged to snatch at her courage and to begin
hastily :

" The marchioness told me yesterday some-
thing that seemed to me very improbable."

" What was that ? " the marquis asked, in
his deep and soft voice, and with his eyes still
full upon her.

Camilla, generally the least shy of human
beings, had a wild impulse to spring up and
run away. The answer stood before her like a
wall She mastered herself and took it at a
leap.

" She gave me to understand that you wished
to marry me."

" Why should that be improbable ?" he asked.

This time she evaded the direct reply.

" I thought it so."

" There is surely no improbability," said the
marquis, " in such a desire on the part of any

man."

Camilla preserved a rather scornful silence.

" As for me," her cousin proceeded, " I am
no longer a young man, but until yesterday I
had never seen the woman whom I could be
willing to make my wife." He moved a step
nearer. "And now that I have seen her, I
will take no refusal."

The low voice, with its mellow cadences that
seemed almost to take shape and touch her

152 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

like a hand, softened the threatening note of
the words, but deepened their note of insist-
ence. She stood up and moved a step aside.
Such a tone was new to her ; she was dismayed
to find herself more disturbed by it than
offended. The blending of calm, experienced
assurance, of personal emotion and of habitual
ascendency, seemed for the moment to put re-
sistance out of the question.

"It is absurd," she said impatiently, " to
talk like that " ; and the feebleness of the words
seemed to mock her as she uttered them. The
marquis said nothing, but his fixed gaze had
the effect of speech.

Camilla stiffened herself, met his eyes
squarely, and said : " I am greatly honoured ;
but I assure you that I shall never marry you."

He smiled — smiled as it seemed with
genuine amusement, and drew forward the
chair from which she had risen.

" We know a lady's ' never/ " he said lightly.
" Let us sit down quietly, my dear cousin, and
consider the facts."

Camilla, after a moment's hesitation, re-seated
herself, and at once repented having done so,
for the marquis placed his own chair imme-
diately before her, and it was impossible, unless
she again stood up, to withdraw from the
neighbourhood of this barricade. It was all

THE SUIT OF THE MARQUIS 153

very slight, this assumption of nearness, but all
very intentional. She resented the more be-
cause she felt herself fluttered. Frightened
she was not — of that she was certain — but a
pulse shook in her veins like the beating wing
of a bird, and she watched his words and
movements as an untamed animal watches the
advance of a stranger.

" The facts," said the marquis, extending the
fingers of one hand as digits of enumeration,
and the index of the other wherewith to mark
them off, "are these : You have exposed your-
self to a terrible danger, from which I have
rescued you. As I have already had the
honour of explaining to you, you are liable to
lifelong imprisonment. ,,

" Not, I imagine, until I have been tried and
found guilty," Camilla remarked, with a great
assumption of composure.

The smallest possible lifting of her cousin's
eyebrows seemed to acknowledge a momentary
surprise.

" Alas ! " said he, " you do not understand
Italian methods. How thankful I am that I
have been permitted to interpose ! If by any
chance you had belonged to any other family —
if I had been unable to claim the right of your

guardian " He made a movement as if he

shook off intolerable reflections. " One con

154 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

dition," he continued, " was that I should with-
out delay find for you an Italian husband who
would be answerable for you in future." He
paused a moment. " I had not at that time
seen you."

Camilla found it less easy to assure the
marquis than it had been to assure his aunt,
that he was really mistaken in supposing him-
self in love with her ; it began even to be not
so easy to assure herself. She felt that she
must hasten to play her winning cards.

" The Italian authorities," she said, rather
hurriedly, " seem to forget that I am an Eng-
lish subject."

" Indeed!" said the marquis, polite and un-
ruffled.

" My father was naturalized as an English-
man before my birth."

The expressive hands made a little movement

" Here," he said, " you must, I fear, be
content to remain an Italian, and to be guided
as young ladies in Italy are guided — by the
head of their house."

She recognized the phrase of the mar-
chioness ; it acted like a call to battle ; her
spirit had for some minutes been rising, and
her vague terrors giving place to the excite-
ment of conflict, which sharpened alike her wits
and her tongue.

THE SUIT OF THE MARQUIS 155

" If I am an Italian," she smartly retorted,
" it is I who am the head of the house. If
I am an Englishwoman, the Lord Chancellor
of England is my guardian, and to him I shall
appeal for protection."

" By word of mouth, no doubt ! " the mar-
quis smilingly remarked, while his fingers
lightly indicated the circumjacent walls. " Your
Lord Chancellor, my dear cousin, may be
powerful in England. Here he is nothing ; he
can find you only through Italian officials, and
— I know my Government — he would never be
permitted to find you."

" But you," said Camilla, " who know I am
English — you, as an honourable man, will re-
store me to England."

" As an honourable man," the marquis re-
turned, " I shall keep the promise in virtue of
which alone I have been able to preserve you
from dangers which I shudder to think of. As
my wife, and as my wife alone, I shall be able
to take you to England. Ah, Camilla, can you
not understand what it costs me to be obliged
to deny you and oppose you, to appear to your
inexperience in the light of a gaoler — I to
whom your smile is a treasure ? And yester-
day you gave me your smile."

If there was any truth in the marquis's hint
that this was the first time he had set himself to

156 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

woo a bride, his natural talent for lovemaking
was remarkable. Camilla, who neither quite
believed him nor trusted him, and who was very
sure that she had no spark of love for him,
was yet shaken and troubled as she had never
been by the wooing of Severyn, whose truth
and loyalty were as solid to her as the foun-
dations of the earth.

Vague alarms awoke within her, and a
sense of unmeasured depths. Were they in
the ardent eyes of the man, those depths ? or in
unsounded abysses of herself? Dim inklings
began to stir of an underself incalculable and
powerful. The clear daylit unity of her soul
had hints of insurrection. She held fast to her
post, but she had to hold fast by a conscious
effort.

" You forget my English friends at Sara-
gosta. They will certainly trace me out One
of them is acquainted with all that I have done
in Italy. He is a man of resolution, and has
interfered on my account already. He has my
promise that I would take no step without in-
forming him beforehand. He will know that I
have been taken away against my will, and
will certainly apply on my behalf to the Eng-
lish ambassador."

The marquis slightly, gently, almost apolo-
getically shrugged his shoulders.

THE SUIT OF THE MARQUIS 157

" Your English ambassador " he said,

and paused.

Then, leaning towards her, his voice falling
to deeper notes, insidious, penetrating, weighted
with passion — " Do you know," he murmured,
"what he will be told, your English ambas-
sador ? That the Marchesa Camilla Veneroni
is with her husband at his estate."

He was so near that she felt his breath pass
with a thrill of horror, of delight, of fascination
and of repulsion, through her hair. Her own
breath stood still, and as she recovered it, she
saw her answer before her.

" And the ambassador will remind you that
the marriage of an English subject abroad is
only legal when solemnized before a repre-
sentative of Great Britain."

The marquis, who had not, like Camilla, seen
a parent married abroad to a foreign subject,
had been clearly unprepared for this. His face
hardened a little and he did not instantly reply.

" He will also tell you," Camilla triumphantly
proceeded, " that, my friends having placed me
under the guardianship of the highest English
court of law, I cannot be legally married with-
out the formal consent of the Lord Chancellor
of England."

A sudden smile flashed into her face ; she
rose to her feet and added almost gaily :

158 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" You see you may as well let me go. You
can never fulfil your promise and provide an
Italian husband for me."

The marquis too stood up, and he too smiled,
not suddenly, as she had done, but slowly ; not
in the least with the air of a person conquered
or baffled, but with the tolerance of the senior
in whose hands lies power.

"What a child you are, what a charming,
beautiful child ! And yet woman enough to
seek the words that you think will hurt. Let
you go, you little wild bird ! No, you must
remain and be tamed, and your eyes opened
to understand. Rest contented, dearest ; here
lies your world, your world and mine."

Camilla stood confounded ; his voice was
like the building of walls around her ; webs of
enchantment wove themselves to its music ;
she saw herself enslaved. Then, like the final
word of the spell, she heard the soft entreaty of
her own name. With the liquid note of the
divided double-1 sprang up out of the past the
memory of another voice, another entreaty, so
like and so unlike this, of the wide hills above
Saragosta, and the grey, questioning eyes of
Severyn Ladzinski. Her heart went out in
an unspoken cry. " Oh, Severyn ! Dear
Severyn ! " The thought was like an exile's
sudden yearning for the wild-flower scents of

L.". ,■> t-'-^k . .

THE SUIT OF THE MARQUIS 159

home. With Severyn dwelt truth and freedom
and all the open-eyed sincerities of life. In a
flash she felt that her moment of essential
release would be the moment when she would
stand face to face with Severyn, unblushing,
untroubled, the depths of her heart all filled
and stilled, and would put her hands willingly
into his.

She had forgotten the marquis ; it was with
a sort of wonder that her eye came back and
met his. He who had watched breathless the
quick passage of emotion across her trans-
parent face, had believed for a moment that
he had conquered ; suddenly he perceived that
she had passed beyond him. As for her, she
was no longer angry with the marquis, because
she no longer felt him powerful.

"My dear cousin," she said, assuming now
the tone of the guider of events, "you see
your generosity is wasted on me. If I would,
I am unable to marry you while you keep me
here."

All at once, in the new joy of this sense of
release and regained mastery, an impulse seized
her, made partly of malice ; partly perhaps of
the terribly besetting feminine desire to set
emotions working and see what then, whereby
so many a woman has found herself landed on
shores she never meant to touch ; but partly too

160 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

of a returning warmth of loyalty to her earlier
lover.

" Besides," she said softly, a dimple coming
in the rose-leaf of her cheek, and a spark kind-
ling in the depths of the periwinkle-blue eyes,
" how do you know that I am not promised
already to another man ? "

She watched the marquis's face as she spoke,
and her perversity had its punishment. She
saw for a single instant a gleam of malevolence,
cold, deep, insatiable. It seemed to run like a
red ray along her future, and Severyn was the
victim in its path. Camilla, who had seldom in
her life been frightened, was frightened now ;
she shrank together with a sharp breath of
panic, and fairly ran out of the room.

A wild instinct of escape hurried her down-
stairs towards the open air; the wall of the
garden seemed nothing ; she could climb any-
thing, do anything to escape the marquis.
Three minutes later she was sitting with
shaking knees on the remotest of the garden
seats, and was beginning to tell herself with
infinite chagrin, that her own cowardice had
given away her triumph. What was it, after
all, from which she had run away ? She had
often seen a look as evil-intentioned in the
eyes of Menosotti, and had never felt the
smallest inclination towards flight. It became

THE SUIT OF THE MARQUIS 161

evident that there were elements in herself
which she had never yet suspected ; and that
henceforth she must no longer dare to trust
blindly in her own firmness. Her thoughts
went back to Saragosta and to yesterday, and
especially to Severyn Ladzinski. How if, in-
stead of turning from him yesterday, she had
turned towards him and told him all that she
had told Allison ? She saw the scene unfold-
ing itself after this new pattern, and heard the
familiar voice telling her that her hope should
be his, and that the cause that claimed her
should claim him too. She knew that he
would have said that, and that was why she
shrank from telling him. If she had known

what lay before her no, even then she

would not have told him, but she would have
kept him safely by her until they were back at
the hotel.

In looking back to that past, she had re-
covered something of the self-confident Camilla
of yesterday morning, and of all the days
before. Again she felt herself the commander
of her own enterprises, and again her mind
turned firmly towards escape.

She rose and went to investigate the wall
by the light of day. The only point con-
ceivably accessible was at the angle of junction
with the house, and was entirely commanded

L

1 62 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

by windows. It was indeed the lowest window
whose strong exterior iron grating furnished
a ladder of ascent By day it would be im-
possible to employ this means ; but she would
assuredly try by night

While she still stood looking at the wall, a
slight sound startled her. Marietta, cat-footed
and with downcast eyes, came stealing down
the steps. The signora marchesa, she ex-
plained, had sent a sunshade to the mar-
chesina ; it was not safe for strangers to walk
bare-headed in the sunshine. She handed a
small black umbrella to Camilla, who thanked
her and moved away with it unopened, to a
shady walk, where her steps were dogged by
the uncomfortable sensation of Marietta's silent
presence on the other side of the bushes.

Suddenly she stood breathless. A parasol,
her experience reminded her, might be used as
a medium of communication. If she could but
attach to this umbrella of her aunt's some kind
of letter ! Oh for a sheet of paper ! A pencil
she possessed, and she remembered that her
purse had a small tablet of ivory.

She emerged from her sheltered walk, un-
furled her new treasure, and sat down in the
circle of its shadow. Marietta slowly walked
on and disappeared behind some bushes, but
her eye, Camilla imagined, was able to penetrate

THE SUIT OF THE MARQUIS 163

the screen. To write here would be unsafe.
She threw back her head, suffered her eyes to
wander in the blueness of the sky and her lips
to drop smilingly apart, while her busy mind
arranged the details of a plan. All at once the
soft lines of her face stiffened ; the dreamy eyes
became alert. A sound had reached her, full
of hope and promise — the creaking of wheels
in the road beyond the wall. People did pass,
then, on this road, and a judiciously thrown
umbrella might hope to be picked up by some
stranger.

She rose, walked about for a few minutes,
and then went into the house, carrying her
prize with hen

XV
THE BEATING OF WINGS IN A CAGE

CAMILLA had written a letter upon a
clean pocket-handkerchief, spread flat
against her looking-glass, and was contemplat-
ing the result a little ruefully. Would these
poor pencil marks endure long enough to con-
vey her tale? The letter stated in English,
and in the fewest words possible, what had
befallen her, with whom she now was, and what
were the proposals of the marquis ; noted that
the drive hither had occupied about four and
a half hours, that the direction seemed to be
north-westerly, and that the ascent had, from an
early stage, been constant Folding the hand-
kerchief carefully, she pinned it round one ot
the inner spokes of the umbrella, cut from her
purse the ivory tablet, and, having with some
difficulty pierced a hole in it, wrote upon it in
Italian, "Mrs. Bush, of the Hotel Corona
d' Italia, Saragosta, will give twenty lire to the

person who carries her this umbrella, 19 and fixed

164

BEATING OF WINGS IN A CAGE 165

it with a bent pin to the outside of the um-
brella. She did not immediately go back to
the garden — that she thought would be sus-
picious, but remained sitting behind her locked
door until near five o'clock.

Then stealing down, umbrella in hand, she
made a careful search for Marietta, and assured
herself that the garden was empty. In the
farthest corner of that wall which bordered the
road she rose on tiptoe and launched her spear.
She heard it fall, and stole away again. Ah,
but at Casello, when she cast her missile, she
saw the recipient below, and was sure of its
reception. As to this road, who could guess
whither it travelled, and how long if might be
before wheels would pass upon it again?

The dinner hour drew near ; she braced her-
self to meet the marquis, and succeeded in
putting on an entirely undisturbed countenance.
He met her as she entered, and his smile com-
pelled her to remember, and to know that he
was remembering, the manner of their last
parting. The dinner was much like yesterday's
dinner; the marchioness was still haughtily
distant, the marquis still eagerly attentive, his
manner tinged with an additional shade of
intimacy, a faint, faint touch of proprietorship,
too slight for open resentment. Camilla had
fully made up her mind not to be afraid of him,

1 66 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

but she did not find it possible to be uncon-
scious. He kept her aware at every moment
that his thoughts were on her, and with every
moment her inward irritation grew. She fixed
her mind upon that umbrella, lying in mute
appeal in the roadway, and then, with a sudden
gleam of hope, upon the garden wall, and the
possibility of scaling it to-night.

The meal was at an end, and the dark figure
of the marchioness drew itself slowly to its full
height. Gladly and alertly Camilla too stood
up, prepared to retreat immediately to the
upper floor. But it appeared that the ladies
were not intended this evening to depart
alone. The marquis, instead of contenting
himself with opening the door for them, ap-
proached Camilla, took her hand, and proceeded
to lead her in the wake of the marchioness
across the landing to the saloon. At the foot
of the stairs she would have withdrawn her
hand but was not permitted.

"Surely," said the marquis, in the most
appealing of voices, "you will not refuse to
sit with us ? Why not yield to our customs ?
They will have to become yours at last."

"Your customs will never become mine,"
Camilla declared. " Why should I sit with you
as if I were your friend ? I am your prisoner
—your unwilling prisoner — not your guest."

BEATING OF WINGS IN A CAGE 167

The marchioness, hearing these words behind
her, turned over her shoulder a haughty profile.
It was evident that she longed to speak ; but
she said nothing.

The marquis lifted the reluctant fingers,
kissed them, and slowly let them go.

"It is I who am your prisoner, your willing
prisoner," he said.

Camilla, released, fled up the marble steps.

She had her plan. She would wait till it
was a little darker, then, locking her door
behind her, steal downstairs, secrete herself in
the garden, and wait until the house should be
all dark and silent ; then she would attempt to
ascend the wall at that corner by the iron-
latticed window. By-and-by, therefore, she
glided down, her skirt lifted from the stair-
edges, a little striped silk rug upon her arm —
for she had no cloak here, and the night might
be cold later on. No one was on the staircase ;
she heard no voice behind the door of the
saloon, nor did the door itself fly open and
reveal the marquis; there was no servant on
the lowest floor.

She slipped out into the court and sped
across to the garden. The emptiness of the
house and of Italy seemed concentrated in this
silent enclosure. She retreated to the remotest
and most overshadowed of the benches. Here

1 68 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

she was invisible to any person not actually
upon the path before her. She wrapped the
little rug about her shoulders and sat waiting,
listening. The moon rose presently, but not in
last night's resplendence; there were drifting
clouds in the sky, and among the tree-tops a
sighing wind. Camilla sat and waited. At
last she drew out her watch and found that it
was past nine o'clock.

Suddenly she heard a sound — a step. At
first she thought that it was in the road outside,
the step of that unknown ally who would find
the marchioness's umbrella. Then she knew
that it was in the garden — a step light, even,
but not rapid ; it might be that of the marquis,
or of some servant looking round before locking
up for the night. Should she move ? Should
she retreat among the bushes ? But the wind
was silent at the moment ; she would be heard.

Perhaps he would not come here ; perhaps

and then the step came into her path, and in
two minutes the marquis stood before her.

He showed no sign of surprise, but seated
himself quietly at her side.

44 Was there no shawl provided for you ? "
he asked, after a moment "That was a
forgetfulness on the marchesa's part."

Camilla said nothing.

* Has everything else been provided as it

BEATING OF WINGS IN A CAGE 169

should ? Is there anything else that you
want ? "

"There is one thing/' Camilla answered
slowly.

He turned an eager face. " Something that
I can give ? "

" Oh, yes — my liberty."

" That, as you know, I cannot give you. I
can give you only change of captivity — since
captivity you choose to call it."

" I demand the change."

"And I," said the marquis, "refuse it, as I
would refuse a firearm to a child."

There was a pause.

Presently, speaking in a tone of use and
wont that might have beseemed a husband of
twelve months' standing, he said : "I am glad
this garden pleases you. We will often sit here."

Camilla made no reply ; what reply could be
made to such a speech? She stared before
her stonily ; it seemed to her as if she had
already been for years resisting this dominating
presence ; she was wearied beforehand with the
struggle.

The calm voice went on beside her : u If you
choose, we may be on our way to England by
this time next week."

England ! Her heart gave a leap.

" I hope," she answered as quietly as she

170 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

could, "that my friends will have taken me
there before that."

" A reverend father," the marquis pursued,
"will arrive to-morrow, or the next day at
latest He brings with him the dispensation
of the Holy Father. Our marriage therefore
need not be delayed beyond Wednesday. We
must then wait for the Government's permission,
which, upon news of your marriage, will be
instantly awarded, and then we may imme-
diately set out for England."

Camilla, growing angry, replied with con-
siderable haughtiness : " Pray amuse yourself
with any projects that please you ; but, as far
as I am concerned, be good enough to remem-
ber that such a marriage would be both illegal
and against my conscience. I am a British
subject and a Protestant Moreover, if I were
an Italian and a Roman Catholic, I would not
marry you."

With that she stood up and moved slowly
away.

He followed and kept pace with her.

11 You are going in ? " he asked.

44 1 am going in."

44 You are wise. You would assuredly fail to
climb the wall, probably hurt yourself in the
endeavour, and certainly catch cold if you
remained all night out of doors."

BEATING OF WINGS IN A CAGE 171

She found these observations the more irri-
tating on account of their probable truth.

" As to our marriage," the marquis resumed,
" you may make yourself perfectly easy. The
English authorities will make no difficulty
about confirming a marriage duly performed
and recognized in Italy. We can go through
the civil ceremony before the English Consul at
Genoa or Turin."

"I do make myself perfectly easy," she
retorted. " I know that no marriage of mine
can be legal in any country without my consent,
and that will never be given."

" We will speak further to-morrow," said the
marquis, quite unruffled.

Camilla merely threw up her head, and sub-
mitted, in angry silence, to be escorted across
the quadrangle and up the stairs.

On the upper landing the marquis wished
her " good-night," and stood watching her dis-
appearance into her room. Then permitting
his somewhat pensive smile to expand into one
of broad amusement, he went cheerfully down-
stairs.

On the next day, which was Tuesday,
Camilla, when she descended to the noonday
breakfast, looked hastily for a fourth cover, and,
seeing none, concluded that the priest had not
yet arrived. The marquis came towards her

172 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

with his glowing smile. In his hand he held a
small umbrella.

" This, I think, is yours," he said.

Camilla received, without a word, but with
an immeasurable sinking of the heart, her
missile of the day before.

The meal passed like its predecessors, but
the manner of the marchioness had lost several
degrees of its chilliness. That of the marquis
was precisely what it had been yesterday ; that
is to say, it tacitly assumed intimacy and boldly
exhibited devotion. Camilla, for her part, ob-
served the necessary civilities, and volunteered
no word beyond.

Breakfast being over, she picked up that
flag of defeat, the umbrella, and withdrew
unopposed to her own room, where she rue-
fully unfastened the handkerchief and the
tablet From the handkerchief, as she un-
wrapped it, fell a note. An instant gleam of
hope ran through her; she caught it up. It
was in Italian, full of melodious superlatives
and diminutives in isstma and ina.

" My Camilla," it began, " why beat against
the bars ? Why break my heart with the sight
of your unhappiness in my house? Dearest,
fairest, yield yourself cheerfully to the inevit-
able, which shall be, I swear it, the happiness
of all your future life. Cease to pine, little

.J^^ttM

BEATING OF WINGS IN A CAGE 173

bird; cease to be clouded, little sunbeam.
Mine you must be ; never, never shall I desist
from my pursuit For your sake, never, no less
than for my own. No law shall snatch you
from me, no guardianship less tender than mine
shall shelter you. You rashest ! you wildest !
you sweetest ! Give your life willingly to me,
even as mine is given already wholly to you,
whether I will or no."

" He must be mad," said Camilla aloud.

The persistence of the marquis was indeed
incomprehensible to her. She sat down with
the letter in her hand to try and understand
wherefore he should so much desire to marry
her. Were there possibly family reasons-
estates, perhaps, which inevitably belonged by
law to the child of the eldest son ? These
considerations brought to mind that of her own
wealth. Having never herself known the lack
of money, the mercenary motive seldom pre-
sented itself. This was actually the first time
that her possessions struck her as a possibly
attracting force; and even now she found it
difficult to suppose that they could be a pre-
ponderating one. Rather, judging her cousin
by the elements of stubbornness, strong in her-
self, she was disposed to believe that her own
opposition determined his persistence. That
he was a man delighting in the exercise of

174 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

power she was convinced ; this was the quality
which at once stiffened her against him and
drew her towards him, his greatest fault and his
highest charm. So she thought, as she sat
calmly glancing at his written words — which
moved her not at all — and feeling herself once
more altogether mistress of herself and of her
fate. She felt to-day no traitor within the
citadel, no need to think of S every n for a
support

A knock came at the door. Marietta pre-
sented herself with a polite message that the
signora marchesa begged for the marchesina's
company.

The message was well calculated. Camilla,
incapable of incivility through the mouth of a
servant, rose and followed.

XVI
THE EMBASSY TO ROME

THE champions of Camilla had not mean-
while been idle. For more than an hour
the three young people sought her vainly upon
that lonely road in which a purple parasol
hung indicative. As they sadly re-entered the
town, it occurred to Allison to seek counsel
from the Syndic. He turned aside into the
office, while Ladzinski and Guendolen went on
to tell the tale to the unsuspecting ladies at the
Crown of Italy.

Guendolen found herself overtaken by that
impulse of exposition which grows from the
conviction of woman that no man really under-
stands any other woman.

" I am certain/ 9 she declared, " that Camilla
has not left us on purpose."

The declaration awoke some gleam oi
pleasure in the anxious heart of her hearer.
He looked at her with — almost for the first
time— a fully realizing perception, and with a

»7S

176 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

sudden sense of her honesty and her com-
petence.

"And I don't suppose," Guendolen pro-
ceeded, "that she is very much frightened,
whatever has happened to her. I can't imagine
Camilla scared, can you?" He shook his
head with a faint smile. "And she will be
as certain as she is of the daylight that we
shall all be looking for her and working for
her."

Her calm, convinced voice, though it said to
him nothing which he had not said to himself
already, was immeasurably comforting. They
were at the hotel door, and as he stood still to
let her pass before him, she met his serious
look of grateful trust. From that moment
there was a staunch alliance between them.

When Allison presently arrived with Sac-
chetti, he found the story already imparted to
the two ladies. Madame Perivier, generally so
full of words, sat in almost total silence ; Mrs.
Bush was ejaculatory and interrogative. The
Englishman discerned clearly beneath her
somewhat disconnected words the thread of
suspicion against Ladzinski.

" But what had happened, Mr. Ladzinski ?
Had there been any quarrel between you?"
she asked.

Ladzinski, extremely pale, and with a coun-

THE EMBASSY TO ROME 177

tenance of the deepest discomfort, hesitated for
an answer.

4i Mr. Ladzinski," cried the agitated lady,
"you know something more than you say. You
know where she is."

" My dear Mrs. Bush ! " Allison interposed
reproachfully, " Ladzinski, let me speak. You
know, Mrs. Bush, we all know, Ladzinski's
feelings for Miss Veneroni. You know, too,
that he has never had an opportunity till to-
day, of speaking to her plainly. Of course he
took that opportunity. The answer which she

gave him was not not so favourable as he

deserved; although not, I feel sure, quite so
unfavourable as he thought it. After that he
naturally avoided the awkwardness of coming
in with her to lunch. He meant to leave this
afternoon — his half-packed portmanteau lies on
his table at this moment As to Miss
Veneroni, why there's none of us, not even you
yourself, upon whom this falls with so heavy a
blow as upon him."

There was a pause which Madame Perivier
broke.

"Here," she said in French, "are five of
us, without counting M. le Syndic. How
are we to divide our forces? What step is
each of us to take towards the recovery of
Camilla ? "

M

178 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

"Some one must go to England, to the
Court of Chancery," said Allison.

" Some one should go to Rome, to the
English Ambassador," said Sacchetti.

"Some one — and that will be I," said
Ladzinski, " must go after Menosotti and force
a confession from him."

"You think," cried Mrs. Bush eagerly,
11 that Signor Menosotti has had to do with
this."

" I do think so," Ladzinski answered.

" And so do I," said Mrs. Bush, looking at
him with quite a new expression of faith.

" I think so so firmly," Ladzinski proceeded,
" that I have kept a detective watching him.
I heard only this morning that he has returned
to Milan."

11 And you will go to Rome, Laurence," said
Guendolen. " And surely Mrs. Bush would be
the proper person to apply to the Court."

"Then am I to go home?" Mrs. Bush
asked rather piteously.

u I think you had better," answered Allison,
who found himself by some odd chance the
director of Mrs. Bush's conscience. "As to
anyone staying here, that seems hardly neces-
sary. Our friend the Syndic will be here. If
Miss Veneroni. should return here— which
seems hardly likely — his protection will be the

THE EMBASSY TO ROME 179

— • - «

best that she can have. Perhaps, in case there
should be a letter, we had better ask him to
open it."

Sacchetti nodded gravely.

" Then I," said Madame Perivier, " shall go
home to my daughter's villa." 7 Turning to
Guendolen, she invited her, in her daughter's
name as well as her own, to accompany her.

11 Yes, by the way, Guen, what about you ? "
said her brother, suddenly recollecting that his
sister could hardly be left alone at the Crown
of Italy.

Mrs. Bush mildly suggested that perhaps
Miss Allison would come back to England;
but Guendolen, thanking both ladies, said that
if nobody saw any objection she would rather
go to Florence, where she would be more in
the centre, able to hear news quicker, and to
meet her brother on his way back from Rome.
"Aunt Lucy was at an English pension there,
a Miss Wilson's in the Piazza d'Arno ; and
there are so few tourists in Florence at this
time of year that she would be sure to have
room for me."

" Then the next thing," said Sacchetti the
practical, " is to secure some sort of vehicle to
take the ladies and your luggage to Dalarocca
in time for the six o'clock train."

It was about eight o'clock on Monday morn?

180 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

ing when the brother and sister, having
dropped their companions at various points of
the journey, arrived at Florence. There was
no train to Rome until nearly eleven, so that
Allison would reach Rome too late to see
the British representative that day. Even
his eagerness admitted the impossibility of
knocking up an ambassador after eleven at
night.

Throughout the long hours of Monday he
travelled on, anxious, hot, and restless; and
soon after ten on Tuesday was standing within
the walls of the British Embassy, and explain-
ing to the hall-porter that he must at once see
the Ambassador's private secretary, upon
business of the utmost importance. He was
shown into a waiting-room, where the duller
half of Saturday's Times lay on the table, and
where a neat, very young Englishman presently
came to him.

" A you were wanting to see Sir Alfred's

secretary ? "

" I am wanting," Allison briskly returned,
"to see Sir Alfred himself, and my business
can't be communicated to any one else. But
of course I know that he keeps a staff on pur-
pose to act as a sieve for callers, and so I
thought it might save time if I asked for the
private secretary to begin with."

THE EMBASSY TO ROME 181

The young man, who had entered with a
somewhat doubtful air as if distrustful of
early callers, had perceptibly thawed on per-
ceiving the visitor to be one whose speech,
clothes, and general conventions resembled his
own. At the first words he relapsed into sur-
prised doubt, and finally suffered his features to
expand into a genial grin.

"Well, you are pretty cool," he remarked,
not apparently without admiration.

" Not at all/' said Allison. " I am only
desperately anxious, and every minute is
precious."

11 What sort of business is it ? " demanded
the juvenile diplomatist.

" One part of it refers to a conspiracy against
the Italian government," — the young man's
eyes grew wide and round — " the other part of
it refers to the abduction of a wealthy British
subject"

" Eh ! " cried the young gentleman in a pro-
longed whistle of amaze ; and turning quickly
to the door, he added : " Seymour "11 see
you"

In a minute or two Allison was conducted
accordingly to a fine and spacious Italian apart-
ment, among the furniture of which a typical
British office writing-table seemed to have lost
itself. Before the writing-table sat an English-

i$2 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

man of perhaps thirty-five, grave, official and
affable, as becomes the highly placed.

11 Take a chair, Mr. Allison, What can we
do for you ? "

" You can give me the opportunity," Allison
answered, "of giving to Sir Alfred Dunning-
ton in person an account of the disappearance
two days ago — the abduction as we believe —
of a wealthy English lady, Miss Camilla
Veneroni."

11 Veneroni ? But that's an Italian name."

"Her father was naturalized, and was a
partner in the firm of Simonides & Co.
There are circumstances in the case which Sir
Alfred ought to know, and which I do not feel
at liberty to communicate to any one else — not
even to you."

Mr. Seymour eyed him attentively, and
possibly reflected that Sir Alfred might not feel
bound to equal reticence. He wrote a few
hasty lines, summoned a messenger, and sent
them to his chief.

The messenger reappearing with the invari-
able formula : " Will you step this way, if *you
please, sir ? " conducted Allison to a somewhat
smaller and gayer room, perfumed with a dis-
tinct aroma of newly-smoked tobacco.

Sir Alfred, a tall and stout man, florid, grey-
whiskered, with an alert blue eye and a loud

THE EMBASSY TO ROME 183

and cheery voice, stood with his back to the
empty, open fire-place.

11 Hey ? " said he. " What's this you tell
us?"

Allison narrated succinctly the departure of
Camilla from her home, the pursuit by Ladzin-
ski and himself, the imprisonment at Casello
and the release. There he paused.

11 The next point," said he, " is the explan-
ation which Miss Veneroni gave me of her
motives. She made me promise to keep them
to myself, but now I feel that it is my duty to
tell you."

. " Quite so, quite so," said the ambassador,
and Allison related Camilla's communica-
tion.

The shrewd eyes of his Excellency rested
upon him appraisingly as he spoke.

" She did not tell this to any one else ? "

"No."

" Now how was that ? "

11 Well, you see — I happened to be there —
and I — rather understood that she preferred to
tell it to some one who had no possible right to
prevent her from doing as she pleased."

Sir Alfred nodded.

11 And the agent ; what was his name ? M

"I don't know."

" Hm— hm ! And what's this ? "

x8 4 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

Allison was presenting to him a small square
of paper.

" That's the agent"

11 Oh — ah ! Just wait a minute, Mr, Allison."

He struck a handbell and bade the respond-
ing messenger ask Mr. Seymour kindly to step
this way.

The secretary came in.

" Look at that/' said Sir Alfred. " Do you
know the fellow ? "

11 I think," the cautious Seymour hazarded,
"that we have seen the gentleman here, not
very much to his credit"

" Isn't it that police spy — what was his
name ? — who got himself turned out for run-
ning rather too scandalous a gambling hell ?—
place where that young fool from Oxford got
himself robbed."

Mr. Seymour cast a reproachful glance at
his chief. Was this the way for an ambassador
to talk before a casual member of the public ?

11 Til enquire/' he said in a tone of pained
caution, and went away with the drawing.

11 Well, well, what next ? " said Sir Alfred,
turning eagerly to Allison.

Allison related the report from Casello that
a self-styled cousin had come to take away
Camilla, and then her disappearance at noon-
day from the open road outside Saragosta, the

THE EMBASSY TO ROME 185

fruitless search for her, and the discovery of her
parasol hanging in a tree.

11 Capital girl ! " here interjected Sir Alfred.

Allison produced Ladzinski's sketch of the
supposed cousin, and noted that this was the
man whom he had himself seen in the church
in conference with the agent, and whom Lad-
zinski had seen not many minutes before he
left Camilla ; beside the sketch he laid, first, the
photograph of Vincenzo Veneroni,and, secondly,
a newly made, exquisite little drawing of the
heroine herself. Upon this last the attention
of Sir Alfred immediately fixed itself.

" Eh ? What ? Is this the young lady ? Do
you mean to say she is as pretty as all this ? "

11 Quite," said Allison with sober brevity.

" Well, well ! And this the father, you say ?
Fine head. And this ? Oh, we know this.
This is the Marchese Veneroni."

" It is, is it ? " cried Allison. " And what
about him ? Who is he ? "

Sir Alfred, who had sat down to look at the
portraits, threw himself back in his chair.

" Well, I suppose the simplest answer is that
he is a bit 6f a blackguard. And that's the
whole of your tale, is it ? n

" There's one other thing. Ladzinski has a
strong impression that Miss Veneroni's step-
father, a man called Menosotti, has had some

1 86 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

hand in this. I know nothing about Meno-
sotti, but Miss Veneroni and all her friends
without exception appear to detest him. And
this is Ladzinski's drawing of him."

"He draws uncommonly well, your friend Lad-
zinski. I suppose he is one of the nephews
of the old countess in Paris ; I remember hearr
ing that one of them painted. And this is
Menosotti ; I thought so. Well, your young
friend has got a nice set of relations about her,
I must say."

" You know Menosotti too ? "

" Know him ! Heaven forbid ! But I know
about him. He lives on sham plots and false
reports, and he's an ally, or was, of Raniero's."

"Raniero?"

" Our friend whose portrait you showed me
in the first place. Young Ladzinski is probably
right"

11 He has gone after him to Milan."

"Who? After whom?"

" Ladzinski, after Menosotti."

Sir Alfred whistled.

" Alone ? "

"Yes."

" I wish I had seen him first."

" You think it is dangerous ? "

" I remember rwell, you don't want Meno-

sotti's past in detail, but I can tell you he

*- — --- -~ —

THE EMBASSY TO ROME 187

would not have many scruples about killing a
man who stood in his way."
Allison sat full of anxious terrors.
"Well, well hope for the best," said Sir
Alfred cheerfully. " A young fellow who has
knocked about the world as those Ladzinskis
have done ought to know how to take care of
himself, and such of 'em as I have known were
neither fools nor cowards. As to this matter
of Miss Veneroni, 111 tell you exactly what I
will do. Til find out from the very surest source
whether there ever was a plot at all. I'll get
a first-class detective put on the track of the
marquis, and I'll lay the whole matter, person-
ally and privately, before the king. I take it,
Miss Veneroni's friends don't want her name
shouted in every European newspaper, and if
there's one thing surer than another, it is that
England and Italy don't want an international
row about an affair of this sort I have spoken
to you quite openly — never could see any sense
in beating about the bush myself — and I trust
to your discretion to hold your tongue, and not
do anything off your own bat. Come here,
this evening, a little after ten, and ask for Sey-
mour. By the way, you had better leave me
your address, and Ladzinski's. Thank-you ;
good-morning. You did quite right to come
to me direct."

1 88 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

Allison departed, carrying away an even
heavier load of anxiety than he had brought ;
while Sir Alfred was left to reflect that it was
long since he had had so cheerful a morning.

XVII
THE PERSISTENCE OF THE MARQUIS

RELUCTANTLY Camilla entered the
long saloon. The marchioness, who was
alone, came to meet her, and took her hand
with quite a friendly air.

" My dear child," she said, " I congratulate
you and myself. Your family will owe you
endless gratitude." She drew the girl to a
chair near her own. " Our Ottavio~has caused
us hitherto one serious grief — his unwillingness
to marry. Proud though he is of his name
and his race, he seemed willing to let them die.
He was himself an only child. I was child-
less; your father was lost to us, and he also
left no son. Our hopes were centred in
Ottavio. He was sought everywhere; ladies
of the highest rank and of the noblest char-
acter were proposed to him ; never was any
young man more popular with ladies — and
yet!" She made a little despairing gesture.

"There must have been some reason, some

189

190 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

tragic story, some deep emotion of those days,
of which he has never spoken."

She sank into silence, and her eyes under
their drooped lids watched Camilla. Her cal-
culation appeared to have been just ; the girl's
face wore a look of dreamily absorbed atten-
tion ; that surest arrow of appeal — a man's
romantic past — had doubtless gone home once
more to a girlish imagination. Camilla was,
in fact, thinking with interest and curiosity of
the difference between the timid youth full of
a genuine and trembling passion, and the
dominating man who looked with the same
eyes, spoke with the same seductive voice, and
measured the value of every glance and every
syllable. It seemed to Camilla that she could
have been in love with her cousin Ottavio
when he was eighteen, and before he had
learned the exercise of his charms.

The marchioness had taken up her tale. "In
vain have I urged upon him, even with tears ;
in vain has our director, with all the authority
of the Church, urged upon him his duty to his
house. We had grown to despair. But you
have come like an enchantress — you who your-
self bear the honoured name, and can under-
stand what it would be to let it die."
. The lady spoke with emotion, and paused for
a reply..

PERSISTENCE OF THE MARQUIS 191

Camilla, unprepared for attack in this quar-
ter, had no answer ready.

Her aunt proceeded gently, almost caress-
ingly : " A happy life lies before you. Not to
many women is given such love as you have
inspired. The marchese seems only to live for
your presence ; his eyes follow your steps ; his
very voice alters when he speaks your name."

" I am very sorry " Camilla began.

"Nay, you should rejoice. A power is in
your hands like that of the saints — to give
happiness to one who worships you. Ottavio
is a man of strong feeling ; it is ill to rouse his
anger ; but where he loves he is easily led,
and his love will be as sure as his anger is
terrible."

Again Camilla had the vision of Severyn
standing in the marquis's path and struck
down. It held her silent and absorbed, watch-
ing as if she beheld it with bodily eyes.

" I do not disguise it," the elder lady con*
tinued. "At first I disapproved of this scheme.
All that I knew of you displeased me. But
even if I had continued to disapprove, I could
not have resisted the marchese's will. He is
the master and the head of the house. More-
over, when I saw what he felt, I could but bow
to the will of Heaven, which has chosen in this
manner to grant our prayers* Gladly and will-

192 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

ingly I welcome you into the family to which
you belong."

Bending forward, she applied her lips so-
lemnly to Camilla's forehead.

Camilla naturally protested that these hopes
were mistaken, and that she neither had
accepted nor would accept the proposal of the
marquis.

The marchioness refused to be angry.

"At least," she said, "you are a Veneroni,
one of our race and the nearest of our kin.
Be content to stay with us and to know us.
The rest may be left to nature and to the love
of Ottavio."

She drew from her finger a ring of old
Italian workmanship — a trefoil of dark-blue
enamel and gold, springing from a diamond
centre.

11 This," she said, " belonged to your grand-
mother. It was your grandfather's first gift
to his bride, and my husband's to me, I had
begun to think that it would never be worn by
any other of our name."

She slipped the ring upon Camilla's half
reluctant finger.

"Surely you are not unwilling to take it
from an old woman who wishes to think of you
as the daughter she never Jiad ? "

"If you are giving it to me as Camilla

PERSISTENCE OF THE MARQUIS 193

Veneroni, I will take it very gratefully and
gladly ; but if you are giving it to the mar-
quis's future wife "

" Come, come," said the marchioness, patting
the hand that wore the ring. " Let us say that
I give it to you as my niece."

11 In that case, thank you very heartily. It
is the only thing which I have ever possessed
belonging to my father's family."

The marchioness looked at her with a good
deal of friendliness.

"You possess their name," said she, "and
perhaps their temper."

She raised her head and listened. So did
Camilla. There were sounds in the house of
voices and of steps. Was this the rescue of
which Camilla always dreamed ?

The door opened and gave entrance to the
marquis.

"Our guest, I suppose, is come," said his
aunt.

"He is come, and will take some refresh-
ment after his journey."

She rose and went towards the door.
Camilla had been quick to follow her move-
ment, and was now following her retreat.

The marquis, crossing their path on his
way to open the door, said, €i Stay, marches-
ina.

N

i 9 4 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

Camilla hastened to draw closer to the mar-
chioness, who, however, paused and held her
back. Camilla felt the trembling of the fingers
that detained her. His aunt, too, it seemed,
feared him. Involuntarily her own candid
questioning eyes went to the other woman's
face.

"You must stay here, my dear," the mar-
chioness whispered. " You must not anger
the marchese."

A little push directed her back into the
room, and the skirts of the marchioness rustled
hastily away.

The marquis, turning back with his hand on
the closed door, stood for a moment silent, and
Camilla, as she faced him, was compelled once
more to admit the excellence of his exterior.
His whole silhouette, dark against the white
door, was like a master's painting, or like the
pose of an extraordinarily artistic actor. The
black of the hair, the warm, brown tones of
flesh, the fine line of profile, melting below the
ear into the strong sweep of the shoulder and
running down in long muscular curves to the
square fingers on the doorknob, presented an
admirable combination of strength, ease, and
grace. Camilla had met no other human being
of whose mere physical presence she was so
acutely and unremittingly conscious.

PERSISTENCE OF THE MARQUIS 195

He came towards her, earnest, observant,
without his maddening smile ; and when he
was close by, lifted the hand with the ring,
looked down at it for an instant, then raising
at the same time her hand and his own eyes,
kissed the ringed finger.

She stepped back hastily with an angry
blush.

" Ah ! " said the marquis upon a note of
reproach, regret, and entreaty.

Camilla resisted her first impulse to snatch
off the ring. After all, why should she acknow-
ledge in it any significance ?

" When you come to Rome," said the mar-
quis, " and see the portraits of our ancestors,
you will find that ring painted as far back as
five generations ago."

" But I shall not go to Rome," said Camilla.

14 Not until we have be6n to England," he
answered calmly.^

He began to tell her of the Palazzo Vene-
roni, its size, its antiquity, the portraits, the
gardens. All this was told quietly and easily,
in a tone that might pass for mere cousinliness.
Camilla, genuinely interested, and making no
attempt to disguise her interest, listened atten-
tively. Perhaps her real charm had never
before been so clearly shown to him.

" Ah ! " he said at last with a long sigh, " I

196 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

knew that you would care as I care for all these
things."

She started a little! and her face resumed its
defensive air.

"I felt from the first moment the link be-
tween us ; I knew that you were the marchesa
for whom my house has waited empty. You
draw back, you erect your pretty barriers of
impatience and rebellion ; but you know it too.
Your words deny, but your face acknowledges
— yes, and your heart."

Camilla, with the ardent eyes upon her and
the whole air about her full of the deep caress-
ing voice, began to ask herself whether it was
not indeed true, and whether this strange inner
tumult was not indeed her heart's acknowledg-
ment. The voice went on ; she scarcely fol-
lowed its words. The persuasive, endearing
cadences had the power not of speech but of
music ; the eyes held her, more persuasive,
more insistent than the speech ; and Nature,
the perverse and primitive match-maker, who
is for ever trying to urge her children over the
verge of pitfalls, began to murmur in the girl's
Italian blood, and vaguely, dimly, to picture
the touch of the man's arms about her and the
warm murmur of his accents at her ear. And
perhaps, if the marquis had been a degree more
patient, a degree more delicate of perception

PERSISTENCE OF THE MARQUIS 197

the prize might at that crisis have fallen to
him. He saw the first dawn of change in her
candid eyes, judged her by his own impene-
trability, and took it for permitted, deliberate
invitation. He suffered the flush of triumph
to run openly across his face, laid his two
hands on the arms of the girl, and stooped to-
wards her.

But he had mistaken the nature of his quarry.
Camilla was of the women who can give them-
selves but cannot let themselves be taken.
With a sudden rage of repulsion, she wound
herself free from the grasping hands and the
approaching face, moved several steps away,
and stood turned from him.

The anger of the Marchese Ottavio Veneroni
was evidently different in kind and in manifes-
tation from that of his Anglicised cousin. He
may possibly have noted this rebuff as an item
for future repayment to his wife, but at the
moment he permitted himself not even an ex-
clamation. She heard him follow her, heard
him utter an apology that was also a reproach.
For a moment she stood averted, still full of
terrors and tumults. Then, some instinct
warning her that her silence would be inter-
preted assentingly, she turned sharply and
faced him.

The marquis was startled. Her eyes were

198 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

wet ; the wavering, varying tones of delicate
pink had vanished and left her very pale, so
that the fundamental, sternly-classic lines of
brow and mouth stood out clear. He saw, as
he had never seen before, the truth of his own
declaration, that there was a likeness between
them. For the first time he felt an instant's
doubt of his own ultimate success — an instant's
doubt whether it were worth while to succeed.
To crush this resolute opposition — yes, that
would be glorious; but to circumvent it and
find it after all not crushed ! Yet, what power
he must already have gained over her if he
could move her thus!

He brought a chair to her; he was careful
to bring it from between her and the door.

" You are faint; you are ill," he said gently.
" I have frightened you."

She sat down without reply ; her mind was
busy with herself, not with him.

The marquis, watching her with an air of
tender solicitude, knelt down beside her, and
slowly, gently, almost timidly laid a hand over
one of hers as it lay upon the arm of the chair.
The posture was a youthful one, not lightly to
be attempted by mature Britons; but it became
the marquis admirably. Humility in the proud
imaginably violent has wonderful at-

PERSISTENCE OF THE MARQUIS 199

Camilla, who had been indeed a good deal
shaken, sat looking down vaguely at the hand
upon the chair. It was characteristically
Italian — square, strong, skilful, supple, mas-
sive rather than elegant, thick from back to
palm, and suggesting to English eyes a
bulkier frame than that to which it generally
belongs. The force of contrast, perhaps, brought
to Camilla's mind the hand of Ladzinski — long,
slender, with fine articulations, and in particu-
lar a delicately-finished juncture of hand and
wrist — a hand that was all expression like his
face.

She felt no desire to withdraw her own hand,
nor to rise and go away. For the moment the
reaction of strong excitement was upon her.
There seemed nothing in this dull languor that
could yield the marquis either response or re-
pulse. But such a mood could not last long.
The colour began to return to her cheeks, the
resolution to her mind ; she sat upright.

The marquis stood up.

" Father Ambrogio is here/' he said, " and
our marriage has nothing to wait for. As to
your refusals, your little resistances, they are
straws — straws on the wind. And if my coun-
try were against me instead of for me, if the
law forbade, if another man stood between us,
if you were another man's wife, all would

200 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

matter nothing — all would be straws to be
swept away. Is there another man ? "

His voice, rising on a note of passion, leaped
into sudden fierceness.

Camilla shrank.

14 There is no other man," she said faintly,
and then was angry with herself for lack of
courage.

She rose to her feet and spoke boldly. "It
needs no barrier of another man to strengthen
me against you."

11 You are mistaken," the marquis answered
quite cheerfully. "If you loved another man —
but you do not yet know what love is. You
will learn from me — and it will be a passion,
your love, my cousin."

Camilla moved away slowly, scornfully.

"It may be what it will," she said, " but it
will never be for such a man as you."

The words had rather the fervour of aspira-
tion than the firmness of conviction.

She was on her guard now, less against him
than against the disloyal something in herself
that responded to him. She vowed to herself
that he should never see the response. She
had grown pale again in this struggle — the in-
ward struggle which exhausts the strong and
passes lightly over the weak. The marquis
slowly smiled ; she was glad of that. The

PERSISTENCE OF THE MARQUIS 201

smile that roused her to arms was her ally.
Her enemy, the enemy that called to the traitor
within, spoke through the honeyed voice and
the eyes of bold appeal. They came again,
these enemies; the smile melted into speech.

" You do not understand how my hope, my
life, my future, hangs upon you. No power of
any king is such a power as you have over me.
Is it nothing to hold in your hand the life and
death of a man, to be able to heal suffering and
restore hope to the despairing ? Does all this
mean nothing to you ? "

She stood in stern and rigid silence.

He tried another note.

"Are you not afraid? Have you no thought
of how a man s love rejected may turn to fury
— of the temptation to make you mine in death
if not in life ? "

Camilla slightly smiled. It was not of his
anger that she was afraid. She continued her
course in silence towards the door.

The marquis planted himself resolutely be-
fore it.

" Listen," said he. " Our marriage is fixed,
and fixed for within the twenty-four hours.
The only choice that rests with you is to yield
willingly or unwillingly. In this house there
is no one but the priest who will perform the
marriage, our aunt, whose heart is set upon it,

202 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

and the servants. You reckon upon help from
your English friends. Let me tell you that
they have made their appeal already, and that
to the king in person ; and have been told that
the naturalization of your father was an impos-
sibility ; that you are yourself an Italian sub-
ject; and that your liberty is forfeited to the
law. To me comes an order to forward within
a week the certificate of your marriage or to
give you up to imprisonment"

II Then give me up," said Camilla.

II I would kill you sooner," cried the mar-
quis.

Camilla drew herself up ; a sudden gust of
bitter impatience showed her where a weapon
might pierce.

"In the hope of inheriting my money ? " she
said, and succeeded in giving to the words a
calculated and cutting note of scorn.

The weapon did pierce; a faint change of
face, a stiffening, a veiling gave the acknow-
ledgment; she seemed even to trace a mo-
ment's irresolution before he decided upon his
answer.

"Ah, you are cruel," he said gently; and,
behind her anger she was compelled to feel a
little ashamed of a suspicion uttered without
full belief.

But her anger still ruled. " Cruel ! " she

PERSISTENCE OF THE MARQUIS 203

repeated with a laugh, and threw out her hand
as if she called the walls to witness. " ' How
cruel you are ! ' says the wolf to the lamb ! "

This time the marquis indubitably reddened ;
she looked with terrified triumph for an out-
burst of anger. But his self-control was of a
sturdier quality than hers. He merely said, "I
cannot quarrel with you. Say what you will ;
it is enough for me to hear your voice. It is
not I who have put you into the position where
you stand ; it is yourself. My part in it has
been to save, to extricate, to find for you a path
of safety. There is no other path. As your
cousin, as your guardian, it would be my duty
to lead you to it Love has come to make the
duty a joy, and your unwillingness comes to
make the joy a torture. Do you suppose that
if there were time, if you were free and safe, I
would hurry you like this ? Ah, Camilla,
cease to behave like a foolish child. See " —
he set open the door, and stood back from it —
" I will not force you to hear me. I know that
you are a woman of courage and resolution.
Call your courage and your resolution now to
face your own position. Think of what I have
said. See for yourself that it must be so. If
you can see any other path, speak plainly. I
am ready to listen. But if you find none, give
yourself frankly and freely ; and remember —

1

2o 4 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

remember that I love you, and that my life has
known no suffering like that which you have
cost me during the last few days."

He spoke gravely, gently, sadly; and his
face full of pain, of longing, of passion re-
strained, held an appeal more powerful than
the words. Camilla, with her hand actually
upon the door, felt it almost impossible not to
turn back, not to yield some comforting assur-
ance, not to grant herself the immediate satis-
faction of seeing his face change to happiness,
and of feeling herself borne away on the
current For a moment she lingered, for a
moment his eyes held her ; then the door was
between them, and she had escaped.

The marquis, when the door had closed, said,
11 Ouf ! " let himself drop with a great sigh into
the nearest chair, and passed his hand wearily
over his forehead.

As for Camilla, she carried with her a sense
of sheer consternation. She had been near not
so much to defeat as to surrender.

The first thing that met her eyes in her own
room was an unfamiliar pale- coloured some-
thing lying folded on the foot of the bed.
Nearer inspection revealed a fringed shawl,
made of the finest of soft silks, and coloured
throughout its shining surface with the faintest
breath of pink.

PERSISTENCE OF THE MARQUIS 205

Camilla was in no mood of gracious accept-
ance. The offered gift stung like an insult
She caught up the soft packet, and flung it
angrily far out on the marble landing.

XVIII
CONSTITUTIONAL METHODS

ON presenting himself in the evening at
the British Embassy, Allison was shown
into a comfortable sitting-room where Mr. Sey-
mour and another Englishman were playing
chess.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Allison," said the
secretary. " Sir Alfred will be at liberty in a
few minutes. Mr. Horace Legarde. I think
Mr. Legarde knows your friend, Mr. Ladzinski."

" Which of them is it ? " asked Mr. Legarde.
11 There were three : Karol, Roman, and
Severyn."

" This is Severyn."

11 Ah ! the painting one. Rom&n is musical.
Karol was the one I knew best He is here
in Rome."

11 And he is a brother ? "

11 No ; they were all cousins, and all orphans;
and they were all brought up by the old
countess, their aunt. Severyn was the youngest
and the cleverest."

206

CONSTITUTIONAL METHODS 207

Allison inquired the address of the cousin
now in Rome, and resolved to seek him out in
the morning.

A whistle sounded. Seymour lifted the end
of a tube and listened.

"Sir Alfred is disengaged now. Will you
come with me, Mr. Allison ? "

Sir Alfred was discovered in occupation
of a deep and comfortable arm-chair; at his
elbow was what looked like a modest glass of
whisky and water, and opposite to him sat a
man of some two or three and thirty, lightly
but muscularly built, grey-eyed, with a thin,
well-moulded face, and a bearing that pro-
claimed the soldier.

"This is Mr. Allison," said Sir Alfred.
" Mr. AlKson, this is Count Karol Ladzinski,
your friend's cousin. He is a captain in the
Italian army, and we have got permission for
him to follow his cousin by to-night's train."

" I am thankful to hear it," said Allison,
meeting gladly the hand and the gaze of
Severyn's cousin.

" Let me thank you for your friendship for
him — and for Camilla too," said the count,
speaking with the accent and the inflexions of
Severyn, and with the same voice on a deeper
note.

" Captain Ladzinski," said Sir Alfred, " has

208 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

been confirming my impressions of the Marchese
Veneroni. It is a good old family, rather come
down in the world. He has squandered every
penny he could lay hands upon of his own or
other people's ; been mixed up in various scan-
dals about other men's wives, and shady money
transactions ; and last of all, had a hand in a
swindling company, and only escaped prison
by the skin of his teeth. Since then, he has
gone into retirement, and the last report was
that he had married, or was going to marry, a
wealthy American. Now I understand that
Miss Veneroni is partly American."

Allison was unable to utter a word.

Karol Ladzinski, who had risen and made
his farewells, looked back from the door. "At
the very worst," said he grimly, " this marchese
is not immortal. There are plenty of honest
fellows among us ready to cross swords with
him for the sake of setting her free."

" He would be ready enough himself, no
doubt," remarked Sir Alfred as the door closed ;
" and, upon my word, the duel seems a useful
institution for scoundrels of that sort. Sit
down, Mr. Allison, and let me tell you the
result of our inquiries. In the first place, there
neither is, nor ever has been, any plot. The
whole thing is a plant. I thought from
the beginning that tale was a little thin. No

CONSTITUTIONAL METHODS 209

man out of a lunatic asylum would think of
trusting Raniero with a real plot. But for a
man like Veneroni, he would be the very tool.
Veneroni, it appears, was observed in the town
of Dalarocca some three weeks or so ago ; and
the family have a sort of villa at a place called
Benivieni, about twenty miles north of Sara-
gosta. It belongs to the Marchesa Serafina,
the widow of this man's uncle. She's a re-
spectable old woman enough, I understand,
but rather under the thumb of her precious
nephew. If she is there, and if he has put the
girl with her, it is not so bad. Ladzinski tells
me she is a Protestant ; that may delay things
a little. I hope we may yet be in time. A
good deal depends upon herself ; and Veneroni's
a persuasive rascal. My notion is, that you
and Seymour and a high police official should
set out by the midnight train for Florence, and
push on as fast as you can to Benivieni. Orders
will be sent to the officer in command at Arano
to provide a military escort. If Veneroni is in-
clined to make any difficulties, that will bring
him to reason. Does the plan suit you ? "
" Perfectly. I am immeasurably obliged."
" Oh, not at all. That's what we are here
for," returned this most unofficial of function-
aries. " One thing more ; I don't want you to
go back to your hotel ; it is three to one that

o

210 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

you have been followed. I propose that Le-
garde should go, taking a note from you, pay
your bill, and bring your bag in a cab to the
station. When it is time to start, you and
Seymour shall go out by way of the garden and
stables, and get into the carriage there. It will
drive out of the stables seeming to be empty,
and probably won't be followed."

•• You seem to have thought of everything,
and smoothed every difficulty," said Allison
gratefully.

"Oh, this is nothing," said Sir Alfred.
"Just think what it would have been in the
old days, with the whole Government secretly
against us. This is all plain sailing. Now, if
you'll just write that note to the hotel people ;
there's paper, and so forth, on that table."

He rang the bell, and Allison's note was
handed to a grave English servant. " For Mr.
Seymour," said his master; "and get a meal
laid at once for this gentleman and Mr. Sey-
mour. By the way," turning again to Allison,
as the man went out, " we find that Menosotti
has just gone to Florence. Ladzinski has tele-
graphed to his cousin to meet him there. Now
is there anything that we have forgotten ?
Have you a pistol with you ? "

" No," said Allison, remembering, with a
smile, his previous expedition under arms.

CONSTITUTIONAL METHODS 211

" It might come handy. We'll tell Seymour
to take a pair. You'll find Seymour a capital
fellow; and I believe he is not so confoundedly
diplomatic when my back is turned, and he
hasn't to keep up my dignity for me. Bet you
anything you like, he tells you before you
get to Florence that mine is a Palmerstonian
manner. It is his formula of consolation. I
don't think he could put up with me at all if
he hadn't that Your portrait of Miss Veneroni
is in the hands of the police — hope you don't
mind that. It is important they should know
her. Ladzinski has been telling me something
about her. Fine girl, altogether, I should
think ; but, good Lord, what imprudence ! Well,
if she comes through this safe, she will prob-
ably have learned her lesson. Remember, if
it's any convenience, you can bring her here
at any moment. Lady Dunnington will take
charge of her. I don't know but what it might
be the very best thing, if tales have got about,
to bring her here, and let her go about with
my wife, and be married here, rather publicly,
to young Ladzinski."

Allison could not but wonder what Karol
Ladzinski had said to make the marriage ap-
pear so probable. He began to utter thanks
on the young lady's behalf, but was not per-
mitted to finish,

212 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" Pooh ! pooh ! Wait till we have done
something for her. Now come, and get some
food"

Half an hour later the travellers were taking
farewell.

" Good-bye, Mr. Allison, and good luck !
Good-bye, Seymour! Take care of yourself,
my boy ; and don't stay longer than you need.
You know I am sure to get into a scrape with-
out you."

It certainly seemed to Allison that these
words were accompanied by a wink addressed
to himself. Seymour replied with his usual
judicious propriety, and, with his usual dis-
cretion, abstained from further speech until
they were well away from the precincts of the
Embassy.

" I sometimes think," he then remarked,
" that Sir Alfred's manner is at times a little
too Palmerstonian."

Allison was obliged to laugh.

" He told me you would say that."

Seymour looked pained, murmured " No ;
did he. really ? " and relapsed into resigned
meditation.

At the station they were joined by Karol
Ladzinski. Of the police official Allison saw
nothing, but Seymour afterwards reported that
be had seen him, and been seen by him,

CONSTITUTIONAL METHODS 213

The train moved. The Polish- Italian cap-
tain and Allison looked at each other with a
sigh of satisfaction and a feeling on each side
of established friendship.

" Now tell me," said Karol, " all about this
whole matter."

"Well," said Allison, a little doubtfully;
" there are parts of the story which I promised
Miss Veneroni not to tell to any one. It is
true that I have told them to the Ambassador."

" And the Ambassador," remarked Seymour
drily, " has told them to me, and to the police,
and to the Minister of the Interior ; and no
doubt by this time to Lady Dunnington, so
that it is hardly worth while to be so very
scrupulous."

"Sir Alfred," Allison began, "is really a
little too "

11 Palmerstonian ? " interjected Seymour, with
quite an unofficial smile.

Allison hereupon began to tell his tale for the
second time that day, while the dark Campagna
and the shadowed sapphire of the Italian night
went streaming by, and the rattle of the railway
wheels broke in upon his words. The faces of
his companions were bent towards him in eager
attention. Karol's alertly calm, soldierly, with
every thought showing in it like a ripple in
clear water ; Seymour's critical, rather ostenta-

2i 4 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

tiously inscrutable, but by no means indifferent.
Allison, while he spoke, was feeling all the
time that every minute brought him nearer to
Camilla, and that once more chance had put
into his hands, and not into Ladzinski's, the
opportunity of rescuing her.

XIX

UNCONSTITUTIONAL METHODS

ON arriving in Milan, Ladzinski went at
once to seek the detective whom he
had been employing to observe Menosotti, and
to whom he had telegraphed from Dalarocca.
He found a letter explaining that Menosotti
had quitted Milan, that the detective had gone
in pursuit, and that a telegram announcing their
whereabouts would arrive as soon as possible,

Ladzinski spent several long hours in Milan,
unable to find satisfaction in the pictures of the
gallery, the aisles of the cathedral, or the excel-
lent cooking of the hotel. The telegram, when
at last it came, gave an address in Florence.
He took the next train, and on Tuesday after-
noon was sitting in confabulation with his detec-
tive. The lodging selected by this worthy was
in a small street lying between the Via Maggio
and the Via Toscanella. The reason of the
choice was soon explained. Menosotti was

2J5

216 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

staying at an inn immediately opposite, the
door of which was commanded by the detec-
tive's window, while the house in which the
convenient window was situated, had the
advantage of a second exit into a side-street,
so that the goings and comings of Ladzinski
were not necessarily overlooked. Menosotti,
it appeared, had been joined by a companion,
had gone out with him and returned with him.
The detective, busy with the past as well as
the present, had unearthed an old connection
between Menosotti and the agent, who was
identified by the name of Raniero.

It was clear that Ladzinski must defer his
visitation until the intended victim should be re-
ported alone. Having secured a room next the
detective's, he went out into the white Florentine
streets, where the warm air pulsated like the
breath of some great living thing, and pro-
ceeded to Mrs. Wilson's pension in the Piazza
D'Arno. Guendolen, when his name was
brought to her, came flying into the room.

" You have news ? " she cried.

" Of Menosotti, not of her."

He expounded his position. " You see, my
chance of catching him may come at any
minute; and if I get anything from him, I
shall want to lose no time in getting off. Will
you tell me where you will be at different times

UNCONSTITUTIONAL METHODS 217

to-rmorrow, so that I may be sure of catching
you without delay ? "

" I'll be here ; I won't go out."

To this, however, Ladzinski demurred.
She might have to wait till late ; the suspense
would be wearying ; he could as easily come
to her in one of the galleries.

Finally they laid out an elaborate scheme
for every hour of Guendolen's morrow, and
Ladzinski carried away a copy.

" I shall certainly come," he declared, " un-
less some misfortune happens, and I don't
expect misfortunes from Menosotti; he is too
great a coward."

Guendolen returned that she should be on
thorns till she saw him, and that perhaps there
might by to-morrow be a letter from Laurence,
with the account of his visit to the Ambassador.

Ladzinski, awaking next morning to the sound
of a clock which was not the clock of Saragosta,
and to doors and windows in the wrong places,
had a moment's bewilderment, followed by
eager recollection of what lay before him. It
was later than he wished. Dressing hurriedly,
he went to seek the detective, who had dis-
appeared, leaving a note behind him. Meno-
sotti had gone out with his comrade, and the
watcher was in pursuit.

The morning passed away in unfulfilled ex-

2i 8 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

pectation. It was not until after two o'clock
that the detective reported Menosotti returned
and alone.

Ladzinski at once crossed over to the inn,
asked for Menosotti, and saying in an indifferent
tone that he knew the room, was allowed to
go up unaccompanied. He opened the door
quietly, and having stepped in, locked it be-
hind him.

Menosotti, at the sound of the key grating
in the lock, turned round from the table at
which he was sitting, and found himself con-
fronted by Ladzinski and by a pistol.

11 What is the meaning of this ? " he began,
but his voice shook, and so did his knees.

" Pray sit down again. I will explain my
business in a few words. Miss Veneroni, as I
think you know, disappeared from her friends
last Sunday "

Menosotti gave an insolent shrug.

" Eh ? it is not the first time," said he.

He hoped, no doubt, to divert Camilla's
lover into the by-path of angry denial, but he
was disappointed.

" I have learnt that you have been in com-
munication at various times with the man
Raniero, who caused her to be detained before
at Casello. I know also enough both of hfs
history and yours to understand how very dis-

UNCONSTITUTIONAL METHODS 219

pleasing for you would be an appearance before
an Italian court."

Menosotti broke into violent interruptions.

11 You would do better to listen quietly. I
am not in the least desirous of forestalling the
offices of the Italian law. You will be left
perfectly uninjured, on one condition — that
you make a full confession of where Miss
Veneroni is, and of the whole plot against
her."

" I know nothing, I know nothing/' Meno-
sotti cried, wringing his hands.

" If not," Ladzinski quietly continued, " I
shall shoot you without the slightest scruple."

Menosotti recovered himself a little.

"You are only making threats," said he.
"You would be discovered. You would risk
your life."

" There would be no risk in the matter ;
there would be certainty. I should lose my
life if I took yours, I know that. I am ready.
I am not in the least in the habit of telling lies.
You will either tell me truly where she is, or
I will shoot you and take the consequences."

"■I have done nothing to her — nothing,"
shrieked Menosotti, running to and fro like
an animal in a cage.

" I am waiting," Ladzinski admonished him.

Menosotti made a dart towards the window.

no THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

"If you call, I shall shoot as soon as any one
comes to the door. It is locked, and the key
is in my pocket."

Menosotti stopped short, staring, abject

" Make haste. Some one may happen to
come without your calling, and the result will
be the same."

He broke out into complaints and reproaches
— his room forcibly entered — his life threatened ;
who was Ladzinski to assume such rights ? He
would have justice.

14 It is quite true. I have no manner of right
to enter your room or to threaten you, still less
to shoot you. If I go that length, justice will
no doubt be done. Let that thought console you.
And in the meantime another justice waits to be
done — the release of Miss Veneroni. I will
give you till the church clock strikes the half-
hour. Then, if you have not spoken, I shall
shoot"

The poor wretch sank into a chair, and fairly
burst into tears. He was not a villain of any
sturdiness.

"The marquis will kill me," he moaned.

Ladzinski's breath stood still. In an instant
he had marshalled the indications, remembered
the title of Camilla's grandfather, and resolved
to risk a guess.

" Better take that chance than my certainty.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL METHODS 221

The Marchese Veneroni is not half so dangerous
in the future as I am at this moment."

Menosotti let his hands fall from his face.

" Why do you ask me," he demanded, " if
you know already ? "

Ladzinski felt his heart leap at the acknow-
ledgment

" That sort of knowledge requires confirma-
tion," he answered calmly. " But since you
perceive my knowledge, beware how you lie."

Menosotti drew a deep sigh.

"It was in Rome," he began. " The marquis
came to me ; he inquired about her fortune ; he
tempted me with all sorts of rewards if I would
bring her over and get her to marry him"
(here, if he had but known it, a stab was dealt
to Ladzinski fully equivalent to any pang of
his own cowardice). " He suggested that she
should be persuaded there was some republican
plot like those in which* her father used to have
a hand. And he suggested that Raniero should
go over to England with a letter."

" Then the marquis also was acquainted with
your friend Raniero ? That was convenient."

Menosotti started.

" And although he had never seen his cousin,
he knew enough of her fortune to conceive the
plan of entrapping her, and enough of her dis-
position to hit upon the likeliest scheme. He

222 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

must be a man of talent, the marquis. Finally,
where is she?"

" I do not know."

" Try again ; follow up the road to the north-
west from Saragosta."

" Raniero has betrayed us ! " exclaimed
Menosotti, starting up.

" Then you had better save yourself in the
same way. No prosecution will be undertaken
against you if you confess everything. We
will not even inquire who first sought the other,
you or the marquis."

" I do not know where she is ; it is heaven's
truth. But the marquis has a house in the
mountains, beyond Arano. I believe that she
is there, but if not, I am not answerable. He
did not trust me ; he is full of suspicions ; he is
terrible, the marquis."

u There strikes the half-hour," remarked
Ladzinski. "It is well that you have saved
yourself. You will now sit down at that table
and write that you conspired with the Marchese
Veneroni, and with Raniero, to fabricate a false
message and a false plot ; .that by these means
Miss Veneroni was enticed to Italy, and that
you believe her to be in the hands of the
marquis at his house near Arano. When you
have signed that and given it to me, you may
write a second paper, promising immunity from

UNCONSTITUTIONAL METHODS 223

punishment to yourself in case your statement
be found substantially correct, and I will sign
that."

Menosotti obeyed meekly. Ladzinski, stand-
ing behind him, watched the writing of the two
statements, then bidding his adversary go to a
distance, he signed the second, retreated — still
with his eye on Menosotti — to the door, and
having unlocked and opened it, withdrew with-
out losing sight of the door as he descended,
and with his pistol still in evidence.

He did not return to his lodging. His own
safety, now that he and he alone knew the
story of Camilla, had become a thing to be
preciously guarded. He went instead to the
post-office, and sent a telegram bidding his
detective meet him at four o'clock in the
Piazza Pitti. He fixed that spot because
Gu&ndolen had arranged to be in the Pitti
Palace from three to four.

Emerging into the colonnade of the Uffizi
he glanced round sharply. Menosotti was no-
where visible, and the unknown man lighting
a cigarette at the corner excited no suspicion.

11 He will go to the police," Menosotti. had
told his subordinate. " If you cannot stop him
before that it will be useless." But he had not
been to the police ; it was only to the post-
office that he had been. The spy concluded

224 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

that it was not yet too late, and when Ladzinski
with a rapid and decided step turned on to the
Pont Vecchio, the other cautiously followed,
and presently watched the grey figure diminish-
ing in the narrow vista of the Via Guicciardini.
Ladzinski went into the Pitti Palace. So did
his pursuer. The rooms were very empty. A
few copyists were at work delightfully undis-
turbed.

Ladzinski passed on, not with the slackened
gait of a man visiting a picture gallery, but with
the swift directness of one keeping an appoint-
ment In the Hall of Jupiter stood a young
lady with an open red volume in her hand.
Ladzinski went straight to her. She turned
with an eager look, and their hands met Then
they walked away together towards the quaint
long passage which connects this palace with
that of the Uffizi. In its solitudes they lingered,
talking earnestly and long. The spy at last
ventured to traverse the passage and walk by
them. The language they spoke was unknown
to him — probably, judging by the looks of the
lady, English. He was obliged to go forward
and wait for their emergence into the Uffizi.

They came down, by-and-by, towards the
exit, and there parted, the young woman going
out and the young man going back. He ran
lightly up the stair, and passed quickly — but

UNCONSTITUTIONAL METHODS 225

with momentary pauses and swift glances of
recognition at one and another of the statues
— along the first corridor of the Uffizi, and
again up the steps leading to the passage of
communication.

His observer, as soon as this intention was
clear, hurried forward towards those turns and
nooks which lie at its further end.

Ladzinski came rapidly up the steps, across
two little rooms full of engravings, and along
the straight path above the river. All the
galleries were empty, for closing time was
approaching ; these outlying departments were
absolutely so. The pursuer alone stood in the
further shadows and waited.

XX

THE CONVENT AT ARANO

CAMILLA sat in a gilded chair, her arm
on the edge of a parti-coloured table, and
in a similar chair opposite to her sat Father
Ambrogio, a man of about fifty, whose thin,
intelligent face bore the peculiar priestly stamp
of mingled austerity and urbanity. For nearly
three-quarters of an hour they had been in
talk, and Camilla had listened civilly enough
to all that he had urged of her own position,
the marquis's affection, and of the opportunity
offered her to re-establish her family, and make
happy a husband whose previous life had been
full of troubles, " and even — I do not conceal
it from you — of errors." He bade her beware
of refusing a good work laid upon her, and
with it her own future happiness.

Camilla, however, could not admit either
that the work was laid upon her or that she
was competent to undertake it She admired

the skill with which moral warnings, worldly

226

THE CONVENT AT ARANO 227

inducements, and appeals to the probable emo-
tions, were mingled — admired, but was not per-
suaded. She made but very few interrupting
protests, and when the admonition had come
to an end, explained quietly that she was
absolutely resolved against consenting to such
a marriage, that she would take no part in any
ceremony, either civil or religious, and that if
— which she could hardly believe possible —
any such ceremony were performed in spite
of her protests, she would never cease to declare
its illegality, and to denounce the persons who
took part in it.

Father Ambrogio gravely and with dignity
replied that such a profanation of the Church's
sacrament was quite inconceivable.

" Without your own consent no marriage is
possible. I do not however despair of bringing
you to see that your duty, aS well as your
safety and happiness, lie in obedience to the
wishes of your friends."

"You will waste your eloquence, Father, as
the marquis has wasted his. No persuasion
can move me to this marriage. I have told
the marquis so from the. beginning, and the
marchioness also. To me it is incomprehen-
sible that any persons should persist as they
have done."

She paused a. moment and stood up.

228 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

The priest, with a further word or two of
pious exhortation, let her go.

The marquis coming presently to hear the
result of his admonitions, found him very
grave.

" Still obstinate ? " said the marquis.

Father Ambrogio shook his head.

" I fear you will not succeed in this enter-
prise. If you will take my advice, you will
give up the attempt."

The marquis declared angrily that he would
not be thwarted by a girl ; that she had already
wavered ; that it would be ridiculous to desist
after having spent so much time, trouble, and
money, and might even be dangerous, if she
were permitted to appeal to the representatives
of England. The only safety now lay in going
on.

" There is no priest in Italy," Father Am-
brogio returned, "who would consent to
perform the service in face of the bride's pro-
test—even supposing that any functionary
could be found to witness the civil contract.
And you know well, signor marchese, that no
such official could be found."

"If the religious service had been performed
first, perhaps," suggested the marquis. " It is,
of course, irregular to perform it first ; but in
such a case "

THE CONVENT AT ARANO 229

" It is impossible," said Father Ambrogio
firmly. "If you are resolved to proceed, you
must have patience, and go differently to work.
As long as she has you before her eyes, and is
able to refuse you daily, she will continue to do
so. A little neglect and uncertainty may work
wonders. Better send her to Arano to the
convent, letting her clearly understand that she
is to remain there until she accepts your
conditions — and let her remain for some
time."

The marquis received this advice with dis-
satisfaction and dissent. For a few minutes
he felt disposed to try the effect of a bribe upon
the syndic of Arano, and to dispense with the
religious ceremony altogether ; but a little cooler
reflection told him that the syndic would cer-
tainly be an ally not for himself, but for
Camilla.

Still, in considerable displeasure, he came to
dinner, and having contemplated the position,
deliberately permitted his ill-humour to display
itself. Its manifestation, however, was cut
short. Early in the course of the meal a
letter was brought to him, and he went out
to speak to the messenger.

Returning, he took aside the priest, and the
two, standing at the end of the long room,
spoke together in subdued tones. Then they

230 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

resumed their places, and the marquis said :
" Father Ambrogio finds himself unfortunately
compelled to leave us earlier than he intended
— this very evening in fact."

His aunt began to express her regrets.

"This being so, he has consented to take
charge of our cousin Camilla."

Camilla looked up sharply, but disdained to
put any question.

" I have already directed Marietta to prepare
her luggage. The carriage will be here in
half an hour."

Was she going to be handed back, Camilla
wondered, to the Italian authorities ? Be it
how it might, this looked like desistence on
the marquis's part, and so far was acceptable.

Nobody ate much more. Marietta came in
with a cloak. The marquis, with a word ot
apology, went away, and presently came back
with an unaddressed letter, which he handed
to Father Ambrogio. Very soon Camilla had
given, as she hoped, her last look into the
mirror, which on the first day had reflected
her countenance of surprise, and was coming
down duly furnished with hat and gloves. The
marchioness kissed her niece with some show
of emotion, and gave her the farewell, lacking
to the English languagerwhich looks forward
to a future meeting.

THE CONVENT AT ARANO 231

Downstairs the marquis was standing by
the open door ; his long look clung to her
as she passed, his step followed her across the
outer court. A carriage was visible beyond
the open arch of the door. For a moment the
two were standing together upon the white
road that led to liberty and England. He
drew a step nearer ; she had a momentary terrqr
that he meant to take her in his arms. But
the marquis had not studied her for four days
in vain, and he knew better than that He
gently lifted the edge of her cloak and put it
to his lips, and, in spite of herself, she was a
little moved.

Of the priest, who sat opposite to her silent,
with his eyes upon a book, she presently asked :
" Where am I going ? "

He answered briefly : " To the convent at
Arano."

The white ribbon of road unrolled before
them, the scent of pines was in the air, in
the sky the cloudless sunset was beginning.
The journey lasted about an hour. Camilla
had seen no town ; the building before which
they stopped had fields beyond its walls.

They were admitted to a bare white room,
where the abbess presently came to them.
She was a woman well advanced in years, the
fine features of her race accentuated by thin-

I

232 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

ness ; her face of a uniform tint looked like
a delicate carving in old ivory. She held in
her hand the letter which Father Ambrogio
had brought, and looked earnestly from it at
the girl, whom in gentle and pious formulas
she bade welcome. The carriage was waiting,
and Father Ambrogio's stay was very brief.
The abbess without further words summoned
a nun, who seemed inferior in social, as well
as in ecclesiastical standing, and put Camilla
into her charge. She did not mention the
visitor as her niece, nor indeed had she ad-
dressed her as such.

Camilla was conducted along a corridor bare
and scrupulously clean. A door was opened,
and her guide, who had a kind, timid face,
smiled gently as she exhibited the tiny room.
The window was high and faced the east ; the
evening light was a little cold ; walls, floor, and
narrow white bed were alike spotless. To Cam-
illa this little maidenly cell seemed to promise
peace and protection. The relief of being free,
if only for four and twenty hours, from the
marquis was amazing.

Presently she began to unfold the something
in her own heart, which she had shrunk until
now from examining. She acknowledged to
herself that she had, not once only, had
moments of inclination to relent The inclina-

THE CONVENT AT ARANO 233

tion had been real ; not a mere effect of fear
or of weariness. The recollection was horrible :
a cruel stab to her proud self-esteem ; a despic-
able flaw in her own nature. A sinking sense
beset her of degradation, of inner weakness that
might perhaps recur. Then, suddenly, with a
great leap of the heart, with a shock of horror,
and yet with a warm illumination of sympathy,
she realized the forces of temptation. The
horizons widened around her ; the dangers, the
pitfalls, and the heroisms of life were all larger
than she had foreseen them, and human nature
incredibly more variable and complex. New
thoughts surged up from depths unplumbed
until now by her girlish experiences, and took
form in words characteristically English, inde-
finite and unemphatic. " I shall never be hard
again on men for the things they do. ,, That
murmur between the walls of the convent-cell
was the harvest of Camilla's self-reproach —
the first step on the journey from the wholesale
condemnations of inexperience to the wider
tolerance whose increasing comprehension
brings increasing pardon. Being, as she was,
courageous, and of a spirit readier to do than
to suffer, these new vistas presently ceased to
be mere avenues of horror ; a call to battle
rang along them. She beheld the book of life —
unlike what the moralists said of it — revealing

234 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

hopes and fears, lights and shadows intenser
than her expectations, and a personal battle
infinitely better worth fighting. The world
had borne to her imagination the aspect of
a stage for her domination ; she saw it now as
the field not of ascendancy, but of ceaseless
struggle, wherein to have made a fair stand,
and to escape egregious final downfall, is to
have done well. A new humility showed her,
. not only that she was no greater or stronger
than her fellows, but also, which is the healthier
aspect of the same truth, that they were no
less and no weaker than she.

A bell rang. Her conductress came and led
her to the chapel. She heard the prayers
contentedly. This conventual life, which she
could not have borne to live, had a delicate
atmosphere of serenity, very healing to the
fatigued and dissatisfied onlooker. She slept
that night calmly and happily in the narrow
bed, and waked to the sound of a tinkling
bell, and to a yellow sheaf oi sunlight shining
through the high window upon the ceiling.

XXI

THE VISITATION OF BENIVIENI

IT was not until after mid-day on Thursday
that Allison, Seymour, and the police
official, whose name was Cardolina, arrived at
Benivieni. A lieutenant and twelve soldiers
were with them, of whom six were to accom-
pany their entrance and six to watch the house
from without.

Cardolina, the representative of Italian law,
rang the bell, as Sacchetti had done just a
week earlier at Casello. A porter by-and-by
appeared. Cardolina asked for the marquis,
and the whole procession advanced into the
quadrangle. Allison glanced up at the win-
dows with a feeling that Camilla's hand must
surely wave from one of them. Cardolina,
with a quick sign to the others, followed the
porter through the wide house door, and the
phalanx entered.

In the spacious hall they paused ; the ser-

33s

236 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

vant disappeared, and presently a dark-eyed
serious gentleman came quietly down the
broad staircase. His countenance expressed a
little surprise but no alarm. He looked from
one to another, and waited for them to
announce their business.

Seymour, whose Italian Allison had already
observed to be excellent, said very politely that
he came from the British Ambassador, and had
instructions to see Miss Camilla Veneroni, an
English subject, reported to his Excellency as
being in the marquis's house at Benivieni.

The marquis gently shook his head.

" I am sorry," he said politely ; " my cousin
has left us."

Allison drew a sharp breath, and the eye of
the marquis fixed itself upon him.

"You admit then," said Seymour, "that Miss
Veneroni has been here ?"

"Admit! I do not understand you. As-
suredly the marchesina has been here. She
wrote to me from — from Saragosta, I think. I
met her on Sunday afternoon at Dalarocca,
and until yesterday she stayed here with her
aunt, the Marchesa Serafina Veneroni. I
understood that she was returning to England ;
but she would not suffer me to accompany her
beyond Dalarocca. She is a little head-
strong."

THE VISITATION OF BENIVIENI 237

It was all said with perfect simplicity and
with every appearance of candour.

Seymour cast a look at Allison, and finding
in him no apparent intention of intervening,
continued to be the spokesman,

" We are greatly obliged to you for answer-
ing so openly. May we further trespass upon
you for permission to see the marchesa ? "

" By all means ; pray come upstairs."

The three civilians followed him. In a large
and bare room sat a severe-faced lady, to whom
the marquis presented them and told their
errand.

She shook her head and sighed.

"It is indeed so, gentlemen. My niece has
left us. I greatly desired that she should pro-
long her visit ; but it appears that young ladies
educated in England are not amenable to per-
suasion — and " — she slightly shrugged her
shoulders — " the authority of relatives does not
in these days extend beyond persuasion."

" You too, sir, are perhaps her relative ? "
the marquis said to Allison.

Allison shook his head.

" I am merely the representative of Mrs.
Bush, her cousin, who is her guardian by ap-
pointment of the English law."

Cardolina now interposed. He was, he said,
instructed to search the house for the young

238 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

lady. He regretted the necessity ; but the
marquis would understand that the duty of a
subordinate was obedience.

The marquis opened his hands with an as-
senting smile; the house, he said, was his
aunt's ; but he could answer for her, as for
himself, that every corner was open to them.

" And the servants, pray interrogate them if
you choose. We have nothing to conceal.

He looked at the marchioness. " Marietta,
I think, has your keys."

She assented ; he rang, and the maid pre-
sented herself.

" You will attend these gentlemen, Marietta;
you will open everything which they wish
opened, and answer any questions which they
may ask you."

He seated himself by his aunt. The others
— the Englishmen not without a little twinge
of shame — followed the waiting-woman.

They went first into a range of upper rooms,
all communicating and all unfurnished; then
into several comfortable enough sleeping
rooms. Marietta threw open cupboards and
wardrobes with silent scorn.

"This," she said, as she opened the last
door, " was the room of the marchesina."

It had the dismantled, dust-shielded aspect
of the uninhabited spare bedroom. She dis-

THE VISITATION OF BENIVIENI 239

played the emptiness of the long wardrobe.
Allison, standing on the threshold, had a fright-
ful sense of desolation.

Descending, they inspected various spacious
living rooms, none of which, as Allison silently
remarked, contained a book, and below these a
series of vaulted cellars and kitchens, where
brass and copper vessels shone from the stone
walls. In one of them an aproned boy was
washing dishes under the drowsy eyes of an
elderly cook. Cardolina, taking aside this
functionary, catechized him exhaustively. The
cook had never seen the guest. He only
knew that plates went up for her, and returned
having been used. The lad, being questioned
separately, gave similar replies. Marietta, on
the other hand, acknowledged readily — even, it
struck Allison, with a certain malicious pleasure
— that she had constantly seen and attended
upon the young lady, who appeared perfectly
contented and happy.

The investigators returned to the room
which they had first entered. Cardolina asked
permission to put a few questions. The
marquis declared himself ready.

" The Minister is informed that there was a
project of marriage between Miss Veneroni
and yourself. May I ask whether that inform-
ation is correct ? "

2 4 o THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" Perfectly correct"

" And that project is now abandoned ? "

" Not at all," replied the marquis sharply.

" Ah ! " said Seymour softly to himself.
Then aloud and to the marquis : " You are, no
doubt, aware, sir, that Miss Veneroni is not
able to contract marriage without the consent of
the English Court of Chancery ? "

"I am quite aware of it. But for that, the
marriage would have taken place this week."

Allison, as he stood hearing these smooth
and ready answers, and watching the calm face
of the speaker, began for the space of a
moment, to ask himself whether it were con-
ceivable that Camilla could be a very queen of
deceivers.

" I have nothing in the matter to hide," the
marquis said. " My cousin has had this
marriage under consideration for the last three
months. She chose to come to Italy, instead
of letting me come to England. Young ladies
are sometimes romantic and fond of mystery."

He smiled, and across his smile shot at
Allison a glance full of covert scrutiny and
defiance. The Englishman's doubt — which
hardly indeed amounted to a doubt, but was
rather the equitable man's recognition that
there may possibly be a second side to the
question — dissolved and left him with a deep-

THE VISITATION OF BENIVIENI 241

seated conviction of the marquis's duplicity.
He turned away.

" Is there any use in staying ? " he said in
English to Seymour.

Seymour slightly shook his head, and with
polite apologies from him and from Cardolina,
the trio withdrew.

In the hall stood the knot of soldiers. The
whole party emerged, a little disconsolately,
upon the steep white road.

" Did you believe him?" Allison asked
Seymour.

" I should have done if I hadn't known any-
thing about him. I could not help thinking,"
he added, after a moment, " that any girl very
easily might."

" If she had believed him she would have
been there to face us."

"He might be afraid, though she wasn't
He has spirited her away somewhere."

Allison looked across the stretch of hill and
wood, and flung out his hands. " And where ?
Where in all this wilderness ? We see her, we
trace her ; she is always gone." Seymour
standing close to him looked at him silently,
then turned and asked Cardolina what next.

" We must make enquiries in the village, but
if we hear nothing we need not despair. The
lady's portrait will be in the hands of every

Q

242 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

syndic and in every police station in the
country by to-morrow. We cannot fail to hear
of her within a very short time."

Allison sighed wearily. His hope had died ;
he had a vague vision of an imprisoned Camilla,
looking out in vain from some remote tower of
captivity.

The village of Benivieni was found to be
very small, and to possess neither syndic nor
police station. Of the proceedings of the
family at the villa its inhabitants appeared to
take no sort of heed.

To linger here was evidently useless. It
was 'decided that the Englishmen should go
on to Arano, and send thence a police officer
to relieve Cardolina and remain in observa-
tion.

Arano proved to be a town posted somewhat
bleakly upon a northern slope, old, walled,
having a vast and beautiful church and a small
stagnant population. An inappropriate rail-
way station sat beneath its walls, and trains
went shrieking and hissing at the foot of a
mediaeval fortress. On the height beyond the
town lay an old convent In Allison's eyes it
was a town far duller and sadder than Sara-
gosta, and of its syndic's inferiority to the
excellent Sacchetti there could be no question.
He possessed no information and no ideas, and

THE VISITATION OF BENIVIENI 243

the tale — so much of it as was told to him
— excited in him no apparent interest.

Thursday night, Friday, Friday night were
spent at Arano. To Allison the town became
one vast waiting-room whence he watched in
vain for a train that never came. Half-way up
the hill between the old-world tinkle of the
convent bell and the modern whistle of the
steam-engine, these strangers spent the slow
hours, and every hour as it came was weighted
with a heavier dread. Allison had written at
once to Guendolen and also to Karol ; and on
Saturday morning arrived a letter from Guen-
dolen enclosing one from Karol.

Allison, as he read, gave an exclamation of
horror, and passed the two papers to Seymour.

" I must go at once," said he.

Seymour read to the end before he answered.

" Yes, I see no use in staying here. I
expect every day to hear from Sir Alfred that
I am to go back too. What a mercy that
Captain Ladzinski was there."

He reached across to a side-table, where lay
a card with a list of trains. In the silence,
while he scanned its columns, the triple three
of the convent bell came floating, now louder,
now lower on the mountain breeze. Allison
thought with a sigh of relief that its voice
would mark his hours of suspense no more.

XXII
THE MEETING OF THE COUSINS

KAROL LADZINSKI, upon his arrival in
Florence, betook himself to the hotel in
the Via Cerretani, whose address he had tele-
graphed to his cousin at Milan. He was sur-
prised to find no answer awaiting him. Leaving
a message for Severyn, he went off directly after
breakfast to the head of the police for informa-
tion about Menosotti, and learned that he was
at a little hostelry on the other side of the river.
Karol proceeded thither, nursing pleasing an-
ticipations as he went of forestalling his cousin,
forcing some sort of confession from Menosotti,
and meeting Severyn with the news.

He was informed that Menosotti had gone
out, leaving no word when he would return.
Only half believing, he turned away, and went
to meet a train from Milan. There was no
Severyn among the passengers.

Early in the afternoon he returned to the

narrow thoroughfare behind the Via Maggio.

344

\

THE MEETING OF THE COUSINS 245

Menosotti was now reported engaged with a
gentleman, and Karol, esteeming it still too
early to call upon Miss Allison, resolved to go
into the Pitti galleries, whence he could by-and-
by pass over by the cool passage of communi-
cation and emerge in the Uffizi, close by the
Piazza d'Arno.

Finding himself by this time a good deal
fatigued, for the travellers had spent nearly the
whole night in talk, he sought a seat in the
remotest gallery, and remained idly observing
such pictures as hung immediately before him,
A delicious calm reigned here. His peregrina-
tions in the warm open air had induced an
agreeable emptiness of mind, so that his press-
ing uneasiness for Severyn and for Camilla
slumbered. After a time, he heard one of
Florence's many clocks chiming half-past three,
and rose to make his way out. He walked
leisurely, his bearing and his step betraying his
profession as surely as if he still wore the uni-
form from which he was at the moment ex-
empted.

The gallery at this end has niches, and nooks,
and windings. At an early turning he per-
ceived a man ahead of him, walking forward,
who suddenly stopped, turned aside into a re-
cess, and became absorbed in a contemplation
that kept his face to the wall. Karol won-

246 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

dered a little at his manoeuvres, glanced back
at him, saw him hurrying back towards the
Pitti, and forgot him. Between the ghostly
range of portraits, too large for their position,
and too poor for any better, he passed ; sud-
denly, at another turn, he perceived something
else ahead — a vague, dark something — surely,
as he hurried forward, a human figure lying
huddled in a heap.

In an instant he was at the spot, and had
distinguished that a man clothed in grey had
fallen forward, and that a dark patch of blood
was spreading slowly over the floor. A track
of heavy drops ran backward and showed that
he had not fallen where he was struck. It was
clear enough that the giver of that blow, having
first fled, had been afterwards returning to finish
his work, and had turned back in alarm at the
sound of steps behind him. With a darken-
ing face, Karol gently lifted the insensible
figure and turned it sideways that he might
come at the wound. The limp head fell back-
ward on his arm and showed him the face of
his cousin Severyn. A patch of blood dark-
ened the grey cloth above the heart. For an
instant a mist swam before Karol's eyes. In
the next he had quickly and cautiously put
aside the upper coverings, torn a long slit in
the shirt, and wiped the oozing edges of the

THE MEETING OF THE COUSINS 247

wound. It was a sharp cut, about an inch
long, and in this position of the victim, bled
but little,

Karol arranged as well as he could with their
two handkerchiefs a pad and bandage, and then
running to the Pitti exit from the gallery,
stopped the nearest custodian, gave him his
own -name and grade, and bade him send in-
stantly for a doctor and the police. The man
was fortunately both intelligent and willing to
obey ; but seven or eight minutes passed before
the doctor's arrival, and the time seemed to
Karol endless. Severyn did not move, or
apparently breathe ; Karols conviction was that
he would never again do either. The hand
which lay in his was cold and limp ; the mouth
had fallen open a little. There was something
especially ghastly in this marble inexpressive-
ness of a face usually so keenly and expressively
alive.

Upon this group of the two cousins came
presently, one from each end, a pair of cus-
todians patrolling the galleries to make sure of
their emptiness before closing. Karol replied
briefly to their exclamation? and inquiries, and
they remained standing by in absorbed con-
templation.

The doctor presently arrived, followed by a
crowd of minor officials.

248 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

He knelt down where Karol had been kneel-
ing, and after a moment looked up and desired
that something might at once be fetched upon
which the wounded man might be carried
away.

" He is alive, then ? " said Karol.

" Certainly he is alive," the doctor answered,
standing up. " Another inch and he would not
have been. The weapon has gone into the
muscles, and escaped both heart and lungs/'
: - u Can he be taken as far as the Via Cerre-
tani ? "

" Better not. I know some people who let
rooms in the Via de Neri, close to the Uffizi.
I advise you to take him there for the present.
In three or four days, if all goes well, you can
move him."

He wrote in a page of his pocket-book, and
sent a messenger with the paper. .

In less than a quarter of an hour they had
the patient safely in bed, on Signora MarzettPs
first floor in the Via de Neri, and the doctor
was administering an infinitesimal dose of
brandy*

Saveryn slowly opened his eyes and looked
up into the anxious face of his cousin. " Karol/'
said he, without any particular show of sur-
prise.

Karol, by way of answer, smiled silently, and

THE MEETING OF THE COUSINS 249

Severyn lay looking at him, his countenance
slowly gathering intelligence and intention. AH
at once he made a movement to raise himself,
which Karol promptly intercepted.

" Don't speak. We know where Camilla is.
Allison has gone after her with a man from the
British Embassy."

Severyn smiled faintly.

" He must not talk," said the doctor.

Upon which Severyn, with a more tranquil
face, said, " Miss Allison."

" I will go to her presently," Karol answered.
" Piazza d'Arno. I know."

Then seeing his cousin relapse, not appar-
ently into insensibility, but into a kind of stupor,
he followed the doctor out of the room.

" It has been a near thing," said the doctor.
" But it will be nothing serious, unless "

" Unless what ? "

" Unless the weapon was not clean. Is he a
feverish subject ? "

Karol at this question grew graver.

11 He has been going through great anxiety."

The doctor looked grave too.

" I will come back in an hour," he said.

"Is it safe for me to leave him for ten
minutes ? "

" Yes; I will ask Signora Marzetti to sit by
him. -What about a nurse for the night ? "

250 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" No need ; I shall not leave him."

The doctor nodded and turned into the rooms
of the landlady.

In little more than two minutes Karol stood
at the door of Mrs. Wilson's pension. Yes ;
the signorina was at home.

He was ushered into a room whose half-
closed shutters shed a green twilight. He
pushed one open and saw the afternoon sun
shining golden on the narrow streak of the Arno.

The door of the room opened. He turned
and faced a young lady whose clear and honest
brown eyes met his inquiringly.

" I am Severyn Ladzinski's cousin. I came
to Florence this morning after him. He has
been — hurt."

She put up her hand with a start. " Hurt ! "
she echoed, and then recovering her breath.
" But how ? When ? It is not half an hour
since I left him."

" Where was that ? "

11 Just inside the Uffizi,"

" He was stabbed in the corridor that leads
to the Palazzo Pitti."

" Stabbed ! " The colour left her face as it
it had been wiped off.

" No, no," cried Karol quickly. " He is not
going to die."

" Where is he ? "

THE MEETING OF THE COUSINS 251

" In the Via de Neri, here close by."

He narrated the event succinctly.

Guendolen drew a long breath.

" I am coming back with you," she announced.
" I am accustomed to illness ; I am really quite
a good nurse, and you will have all sorts of
arrangements to make. You must have some-
body to help."

Karol was conscious of an immense comfort
in this suggestion. Guendolen inspired in him
the same confidence as her brother, and re-
garded him with exactly the same look of
established friendly relation.

He made no effort at polite refusal, but said
simply, " Will you, indeed ? Thank you ! "
Again he stood looking out upon the golden
thread of water, but in a mood incredibly more
hopeful.

Guendolen came back with her hat on, and
with a light cloak over her arm. It was quite
within her previsions that her return might be
at a late hour of the evening.

" I have just remembered," she said, as they
went downstairs ; " there is Mr. Ladzinski's
detective. He was going back to meet him in
the square of the Pitti. They were to go on
together to Arano."

" Arano ? Then he knows where she is ? v
Did he see Menosotti ? "

252 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

"Then you know where she is?" cried
Guendolen in equal surprise.

" We suppose her to be at Benivieni. Your
brother will be there some time to-morrow."
He saw her expression changing to alarm, and
added quickly, " The Ambassador's secretary is
with him, and a commissary of police, and
they were to have a guard of soldiers. Was it
Menosotti who told Severyn ? "

" Yes, and gave him a paper. Here it is."

Karol glanced through the few lines.

" Yes ; we had got at the same information,
and I suppose it was some emissary of Meno-
sotti's who stabbed him. Probably it was this
paper that he was going back for. This is the
house."

In ten minutes Guendolen had installed
herself in full command of the sick room,
and despatched Karol upon his various err-
ands.

He returned to find her sitting quietly by
the open window, the patient sleeping calmly,
an air of peace and order reigning throughout
the room, and an excellent meal waiting for
himself. She sat by him while he ate, repeated
to him the doctors instructions, and listened
eagerly to his report.

When towards ten o'clock he walked with
her the few yards to Mrs. Wilson's door, she

THE MEETING OF THE COUSINS 253

said in a matter-of-course way that she should
be back by nine the next morning.

During the earlier hours of the night watch,
Severyn muttered a good deal; the names
of Camilla and Menosotti were several times
distinguishable, and Karol, as he listened, sat
realizing the utter powerlessness of one man
to lift the burden of another. Then he too
thought of Camilla, and hot waves of anger
disturbed his steadiness and set him dreaming
wild dreams of revenge. As morning dawned,
Severyn sank into a quiet sleep, and Karol
with a return of hope and comfort, said to him-
self, " At nine o'clock she will be here."

i

XXIII

GUENDOLEN LEARNS HER OWN

MIND

THE wound of Severyn proceeded on its
way to recovery in a regular and orderly
manner. For a couple of days there were
apprehensions of fever, the rather that the
weather became very hot. It was agreed that
he should be removed at the earliest possible
moment to the cooler air of that villa above
Lucca to which Madame Perivier so earnestly-
invited him. Guendolen during these first
days practically lived at Signora Marzetti's, re-
turning to the Piazza d'Arno only to dine and
sleep.

On the morning of Saturday, Karol being out,
she was sitting reading aloud to the patient
from a volume that bore the label of M. Vieus-
seux, when the servant of the house brought in
a card, and said the gentleman was waiting to
see her. Guendolen looked at the card, and
read on it the name: Mr. James Holbeck.

a 54

GUENDOLEN'S MIND 255

Severyn, observing her with all the invalid's
interest in any and every prospect of something
new, saw her grow slowly red.

" I will come," she said, without any eager-
ness.

She rose, looked round to make sure that his
glass of lemonade was within his reach, laid the
book beside it, and went out.

As she opened the door she perceived that
the visitor had been permitted to wait outside
it He gave a quick and searching glance at
the interior, and, as the door shut it off, uttered
a stiff " How do you do ? "

Guendolen led him into the sitting-room,
furnished with glaring colours and profusely
hideous ornaments, which was the chief pride of
Signora Marzetti's existence, and asked him to
sit down.

He was a large young man, a little stiff in
his movements, good-looking in a rough-hewn
way, with a stubborn mouth, a square chin, and
an aggressively white collar.

" You are surprised to see me ? " he began.

" Yes/' said Guendolen. She hoped her
tone did not betray how little she was pleased.

" But not so surprised as I am to find you
here"

She was silent

" I came," Mr. Holbeck resumed, " because

256 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

I did not really feel that I could bear to wait
any longer. It is a fortnight since you went
away, and every day makes me feel more and
more that I can't do without you."

He was one of the ill- endowed persons
whom emotion renders gruff; and his words,
which, on the lips of Severyn, for instance,
would have been tender, sounded like a mere
grumble.

Guendolen, however, did him justice. It
was not his inadequacy of expression that
checked her answer ; it was the sudden clear-
ness of her own course. Until she saw him
again she had thought herself uncertain — when,
indeed, she thought about the matter at all —
but now she knew better.

" Surely," said Mr. Holbeck, "a fortnight
must be enough for any woman to make up her
mind in."

" It has been enough. I am very sorry, Mr.
Holbeck, very sorry ; but this fortnight has
shown me that I shall never care for you in
that way."

He turned pale through his sunburn. She
felt a horrible remorse, and behind the remorse
a glimpse of the relief it would be to have him
gone for ever.

" I am — this is — rather unexpected," he said,
with manifest effort.

GUENDOLEN'S MIND 257

She felt that strict justice would allow her a
protest, but she abstained.

Being left uncontradicted, and his disappoint-
ment taking an angrily jealous tinge, he went a
step further.

" I suppose there's another man."

Guendolen, still inclined to be as indulgent
as possible, opened her mouth to say " No " ;
but her conscience suddenly arrested the word
unspoken. She perceived for the first time
that perhaps there was another man.

She sat with a look upon her face of surprised
reflection, and Mr. Holbeck not unnaturally
became irritated.

" One might guess as much when one finds a
young lady established in charge of a romantic
invalid, whom she had never heard of three
weeks ago."

Guendolen stood up.

"You are mistaken. My interest in Mr.
Ladzinski arises chiefly from his being in love
with a friend of mine who is unable to be here
herself."

Mr. Holbeck stood looking a little ashamed.

" It did look — a little odd," he said apologe-
tically. " It is the sort of thing, you know, that
makes people talk. I wonder your brother did
not tell you of it"

Recognizing that these admonitions were

R

258 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

well intended, and that they were not uttered
with enjoyment, Guendolen bore them pa-
tiently.

" I think/ 9 she said with good temper, " that
in this matter I must judge for myself."

" Yes, of course, only— — " He was turning
his hat to and fro in his hands, and looking at
it earnestly. " Do you think the — the young
lady will quite like it ? "

What answer Guendolen might have given
to this suggestion remains uncertain. At this
moment the door opened, and Karol Ladzinski
appeared on the threshold. He had now re-
sumed his uniform, and the blue and silver of
an Italian officer is a singularly advantageous
costume. In his hand he held a newspaper
and a bunch of roses ; the scent of the flowers
flowed into the room. He had evidently not
known that any stranger was here. The sur-
prise on the faces of the two men was
equal.

" A friend from England/' said Guendolen,
"has come to see me. Mr. Holbeck — Count
Ladzinski/'

Mr. Holbeck, who had grown red, gave a
sort of disconcerted nod ; Karol made his mili-
tary bow, and said something in his excellent,
deliberate English, of hoping to be made useful
to any friend of Miss Allison. Then he laid

GUENDOLEN'S MIND 259

the paper on the table — it was the Temps,
and Mr. Holbeck observed its French title
with a frown — and went away.

Guendolen was perfectly well aware that this
interlude had extremely displeased her visitor.
He took up the newspaper, shrugged his
shoulders, threw it down again, and said, —

II You seem to have become very thoroughly
foreign in a short time."

Guendolen said nothing.

II I understand now how a plain Englishman
can't expect to compete with a count — and a
uniform. Of course, I have no right to say
anything »

11 No," interjected Guendolen, gently but
firmly. -\

" But I must just warn you that these
foreign titles are deceptive. Many of these
counts and things are mere penniless adven-
turers. To think oiyou being mixed up with a
wretched Pole who has got himself stabbed in
who knows what low quarrel ! "

"I beg your pardon. I know exactly in
what quarrel, and so does Laurence, and so
does Sir Alfred Dunnington, the British Am-
bassador. It was a quarrel on behalf of the
English lady I spoke of just now."

Mr. Holbeck, in his desire not to acknow-
ledge defeat, retreated upon a rash generality

260 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

singularly at variance with his own personal
inclination of the moment

" Gentlemen don't quarrel about ladies."

" Nor with them, I hope," Guendolen rather
smartly retorted. " I am sorry, Mr. Holbeck,
that my conduct strikes you as improper. The
very difference between the way we look at
things shows how unwise we should be to think
of marrying/'

To Mr. Holbeck's mind, on the contrary
that difference showed how desirable for her
would be a husband of sound common sense ;
but the expression in polite terms of this con-
viction was beyond his powers, and the futile
endeavour told upon his temper.

" Some one ought to tell your aunt," he broke
out. " It is not — it is really hardly respectable.
If / had any influence "

" You would insist on my going away im-
mediately ? "

11 Yes, of course."

" It is as well, then, that the question does
not arise. Are you staying long in Flor-
ence ? "

" I am staying till the next train," said Mr.
Holbeck angrily. " Do you suppose I came
to this furnace of a town for anything except to
see you ? And I am glad I did come and
saw for myself. I would not have believed "

GUENDOLEN'S MIND 261

He stopped himself. "Good-bye, Miss Alii-

son.

" Good-bye/' said Guendolen gently.

He was gone, and she was left to ask herself
how she could ever have thought it possible to
accept him. It was not upon Mr. Holbeck,
however, that her thoughts remained. A slow
colour came over her face ; her lips parted in a
surprised smile. Presently, with a long sigh,
she recalled herself, and went to superintend
the preparation of a cup of beef tea.

The scent of Karol's roses met her as she
came into the sick room. Karol himself looked
up from his place beside Severyn. There was
an involuntary question in the look, almost a
fear. Guendolen met it for an instant, and
turned away satisfied.

XXIV
THE CAGE DOOR OPEN

CAMILLA had dwelt in the convent for
nine days, and was growing impatient for
the next turn of her fate. She longed with a
veritable thirst for news of what her friends
were doing. The marquis's assurance that they
had made application and been refused she had
upon consideration rejected as a mere inven-
tion. She was absolutely sure that neither
Severyn nor Mr. Allison would accept such a

refusal.

Now on the Friday morning she was sum-
moned to the abbess, and asked herself as she
went down the long corridor whether she would
find the marquis with her. She found instead
Father Ambrogio.

The abbess, lifting her face, so calm yet so
worn, so strangely like, at some moments, both
to the marquis and to Camilla's own father,

said, " Father Ambrogio wishes to know, my

262

THE CAGE DOOR OPEN 263

daughter, whether you are ready to return to
Benivieni."

Camilla drew back.

" I will never return to Benivieni."

The abbess and the priest looked at each
other*

"You are content, then," said Father Am-
brogio, " to remain here ? "

" Not at all ; but rather here than at Beni-

• • •>
vieni.

The abbess, who until this moment had
never addressed to her any but superficial
observations, now asked in her measured tones,
"Why, my daughter, are you so averse from
a marriage with your cousin ? "

4 'Because I distrust him; because he belongs
to a different nation and a different religion ;
because " — a warm flush came over her face ;
her voice wavered and sank — " because I love
another man, and he asked me to marry him
that Sunday morning "

She clasped her hands over her face, and
tears crept through her fingers.

Again her hearers looked at each other, and
the priest slowly shook his head.

Camilla, by a great effort of will, checked the
rising waves, and with one long shivering
breath faced the world again. She drew nearer
to the abbess and gently touched her hand.

264 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" Reverend mother, you are my nearest of
kin — the only person living of my own blood
who knew my father. Surely you will not help
to cause unhappiness to his child, whom he
loved and who desires to love you."

She knelt down by her aunt's chair, and laid
the withered hand against her own fresh cheek.

" Child, child," said the abbess, " I have put
away these earthly ties fifty years ago— when I
was as young as you are."

She spoke, however, not unkindly, and her
fingers closed gently upon the girl's.

" My daughter, you have never learned the
blessings of obedience and self-sacrifice. Your
own will is dearer to you than the will of
Heaven, speaking through the will of your
elders and natural guardians. Go now, clear
your heart of pride and of self-will, and later
in the day we will speak again."

Camilla went, and Father Ambrogio said,
"It is useless."

"She is her father's own child," said the aunt
with some emotion.

" All the convents of the province are t6 be
visited," said the priest. " It is better that we
should set her free and make a merit of it than
that she should be set free by the civil arm."

" Will not the marquis be very angry ? "

11 It is possible ; but it is better for him to be

THE CAGE DOOR OPEN 265

angry than to be imprisoned. If she is taken
from him by the law he will certainly be pun-
ished. Otherwise I imagine her friends will
hardly desire to make the incident public, and
he will escape."

" It is true," said the abbess meditatively.
" Let us, if we can, save the last of my father's
name from public disgrace."

Father Ambrogio suffered a moment to pass
before replying. Perhaps in his wider worldly
knowledge, the difference between public dis-
grace and the marquis's actual reputation ap-
peared immaterial.

" Will you leave the matter in my hands ? "
he finally asked ; and she gave an assenting
motion of the head.

Late that afternoon some one knocked at the
door of Camilla's tiny apartment Opening it
she beheld Father Ambrogio, who bade her
take her hat and cloak and come into the gar-
den.

She hung back.

" You are going to try and take me back to
Benivieni ? "

He assured her solemnly that he had no
such intention.

Rather doubtfully she took up her hat and
the cloak which had been provided for her
when she came hither.

266 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

Father Ambrogio, stalking silently ahead, led
the way to the garden. At each fresh turning
and at each door he peered forward carefully
before advancing, and when the garden was
reached walked on into its more distant paths.
Standing still and presenting a very grave
countenance, he said, " If I risk the implacable
resentment of your cousin by giving you your
liberty, will you repay me by a promise that
your friends will not try to punish him for
detaining you?"

Her eyes widened. u I promise," she said
eagerly.

He turned his arm and showed her a long
key whose wards rested in his hand.

41 Come, then."

She followed, all a-tremble. They came to
a door in the wall at the end farthest from the
building.

Father Ambrogio inserted and turned the
grating key. It seemed hours until the door
swung slowly back on its reluctant hinges.

The sun outside had a gayer light than here
within. She sprang forward.

11 Arano is below on the left," said the priest.
" A moment — have you money ? "

" Plenty, plenty."

11 Adieu, then," said he ; and she, murmuring
hasty incoherent thanks, was beyond the wall

THE CAGE DOOR OPEN 267

and hearing the door closing and locking be-
hind her.

At first she ran, her shadow running aslant
beside her ; but presently, as the town came in
sight, she slackened. She saw the white flag
of steam from a train curling round the waist
of the hill. To her it was a flag of hope. She
had a sudden superstitious thrill such as runs
across the imagination of the imprisoned. Her
captivity showed like the work of a spell, and
the spell broken by her own casting off of pride
and open acceptance of Severyn. It was no
longer England which stood as the goal of her
journey, but Severyn. Their meeting rose
before her in vague delightful pictures ; she
saw herself always going towards him with the
words on her lips, " I am yours." No timidity,
no reserve hung over that imagined re-union.
There was nothing in Severyn that discon-
certed her, nothing that beguiled her into
contradictions and set her better self on the
defensive.

Reaching Arano, she found that the next
train southward would go in twenty minutes —
a conjunction, indeed, which Father Ambrogio
had carefully calculated. At the shops close to
the station she bought herself fruit and a couple
of little twisted rolls, and, with a sudden thirst
of eagerness, a newspaper.

268 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

As she sat alone in her compartment, having
taken a ticket to the junction of Siametta, which
is the terminus of this little line, she began to
dare to look forward with some definition of
detail. When she came to Siametta, what
next? The idea of England presented itself
only to be immediately scouted Saragosta was
the spot where her enemies would naturally
seek her ; Saragosta was out of the question.
Suddenly, like a rock out of the waves, rose the
idea of Madame Perivier and the villa of Ma-
dame Perivier's daughter. The marquis could
have no clue to guide his pursuit to Lucca ; and
Madame Perivier would certainly know where
Severyn was. She would go thither without a
minute's unnecessary delay. If she were fortu-
nate, she ought to arrive at Siametta early
enough to get a train to-night to Milan. At
the worst she would have to spend the night in
Milan, and go on early in the morning. In
that case she would hardly reach Lucca before
Saturday evening. It suddenly occurred to her
that it would be awkward to present herself
late at night at a Milanese hotel with no other
luggage than a cloak, and that she would have
to purchase at least a semblance of baggage at
Siametta.

The sunlit landscape unrolled before her;
by-and-by she perceived, like the scar of a cut

THE CAGE DOOR OPEN 269

among the grey hills and the dark pine woods,
the white road by which the marquis had
brought her. She could even distinguish a
vehicle upon it, and pleased herself with the
fancy that her cousin sat within it, and that,
looking down on the white flag that went
wavering through the valley, he guessed it for
the token of her escape.

The peaches, with their slight native rough-
ness, so different from the bland insipidity ot
the hot-house, the rolls, with their sprinkling of
aniseed, were the food of liberty, delicious alike
to palate and to imagination. The air, warmer
and warmer as they descended, was a tonic
draught; her face, expanding into hope and
happiness, drank in fresh life as a convalescent
drinks fresh health at a first airing. As the
train slackened for Dalarocca, the last station
before Siametta, she could almost have cried.
This dingy, familiar station had a face of home.
She recognized the station-master, and with
sudden recollection that she was a fugitive,
drew back into her carriage lest he should
recognize her.

Here presently was Siametta. Now to learn
whether a train onward could be caught to-
night in Milan. Yes, it could ; there would be
nearly an hour's interval, and the Milan train
was due at Florence about eight to-morrow

270 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

morning. She had asked about Florence, un-
willing to leave the name Pistoja lying in the
track of possible pursuers.

.At Milan she made a dream-like meal, saying
to herself all the time, "In another twelve
hours I shall be at Lucca and hearing of him."

The carriage for ladies was claimed by no
participator. She stretched her feet along the
seat, spread her cloak over them, and sat smil-
ing out upon the darkened plains that floated
by. Presently she even slept, waking at inter-
vals to sweet thoughts. Happier night was
never spent by released captive. She was too
happy to be impatient of the train's deliberate
slowness.

Seven o'clock; high sunlight on a cheerful
world ; Pistoja, and apparently market day, with
a concourse of country folk, fruit, and skinny
fowls, and a vast Babel of tongues. The allure-
ments of coffee grew insistent ; soon she had
learned that she must wait until half-past eight
for the train to Lucca, and was sitting before a
steaming mortar of coffee.

The train to Lucca was full of lively persons ;
the whole province seemed astir this morning.
Camilla, as she sat in it, had visions of a
troubled marquis newly arrived in Milan, and
running from hotel to hotel in pursuit of a fly-
ing kinswoman.

THE CAGE DOOR OPEN 271

And here at last, after an inimitably stretched
last hour, she stood before the gate of a garden,
and knew that within that garden stood the
abode of Madame Perivier. She could not
pause for bells and servants ; the gate yielded
to her hand. She walked in, her hands empty,
her cloak upon her arm. Swiftly she came
along the walks. Suddenly, with her hand at
her heart, she stopped dead.

On the grass, in a cool patch of shade, lay a
rug, and on the rug lay Severyn, pale, thin,
with closed eyelids. His hand, resting on a
shut book, had the waxen pallor of illness.
He opened his eyes; there was a murmur of
voices ; the world swam ; she found herself
supported by a firm arm, and looked up dazed
into the friendly face of Karol Ladzinski.

XXV
"JOURNEYS END "

WE lay out in the theatre of the mind our
little scenes and dramas, and the part
allotted to our own playing is the fixed central
pivot. Then life takes the scenes and perhaps
accepts our situation, but the part she puts into
our mouth has a new shape. Camilla, when
she found herself actually face to face with
Severyn, had no disposition to go forward and
say " Take me." A gulf yawned, and on the
other side she saw a horrible uncertainty
whether by this time he even desired to take
her. And all that she said, stooping over a
figure that raised itself on a left arm and held
up an unduly transparent hand, was : " You
have been ill, Severyn?"

" A mere trifle, not worth talking of. And
you, Camilla ? "

The thin hand clung to hers ; a sudden con-
fusion of sensations made it impossible to look

from the hand to the face.

972

"JOURNEYS END " 273

" I am free, unhurt"

"And tired and hungry," said Guendolen,
who felt the necessity of breaking in upon a
moment which, since it could not be confiden-
tial, threatened to become painful.

" Severyn, you shall be the first to hear her
story, and to tell her everything, except " — she
gave him a quick smile that fused itself in a
blush — "what concerns me."

She took Camilla by the shoulders, and gave
her a long kiss. Camilla looked at her, be-
wildered by the name "Severyn" upon her
lips. Then the recovered captive was yielded
to Madame Perivier and then to Karol, in
whose kind, fraternal eyes she perceived some
deeper meaning, some warmer light than she
remembered there. Two little children looked
on round-eyed, the boy with a thumb in his
mouth, the girl hugging a doll. In the cool
house, Camilla was presented to Madame
Bioletti, the daughter of Madame Perivier;
and a call from Guendolen brought in Allison.
He paused on the threshold, absolutely unpre-
pared, amazed, speechless. They stared at
each other, each beholding the change wrought
by a fortnight's experiences. Camilla feeling
his silence as a reproof, cried out quickly : —

"You don't think — do you — that I went
away on purpose ? "

s

274 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" No, no* Were you at Benivieni after
all?"

"Yes, and then at the convent at Arano."

" The convent at Arano ! " he echoed, with a
biting sense of the ironies of circumstance.

"But you must not ask her questions,
Laurence. I promised Severyn that he should
be the first to hear."

" Let me at least tell her that his wound is
nearly well, and that he will be about as usual
in less than a week ? "

Camilla looked at him gratefully, but she
could neither smile nor speak. The word
"wound" had been an unexpected shock.
She had seen Severyn ill ; she had not thought
of violence.

A few minutes later, when the two girls
were together in Guendolen's room, that
young woman, sitting by the open window,
and turning to and fro a ring upon her finger,
said gently, " Camilla "

" Yes," said Camilla, with a sponge in her
hands and her hands in a basin of water.

" Will you be my bridesmaid some day be-
fore the end of this year ? "

The sponge dropped from Camilla's hands.
She turned round sharply; silent, remember-
ing that new use of Severyn's Christian name.
Guendolen, in a flash of divination, understood

"JOURNEYS END '* 275

the fear behind the silence, and said softly,

" KaroL"

In an instant a cool cheek was beside hers,
and murmurs of congratulation were cooing
into her ear. They held each other close, with
a little sob or two. Guendolen, amid all her
personal joy, and amid a very real relief on
Severyn's behalf, had a pang for her brother.
How deep his feeling was, or how slight, she
had never been able to decide ; of its existence
she had no doubt, and she had foreseen from
the beginning this pang of division — but she
had expected the relief to be for Laurence and
the sorrow for Ladzinski. Perhaps that was
the reason why she had always been scrupu-
lously anxious to give Ladzinski every chance.

Severyn, meanwhile, sat in a cool northern
room looking out on the upward slope of
Madame Bioletti's garden, and preparing him-
self to walk in the path prescribed for him.
Camilla, through all the agitation of later feel-
ings, had remembered chiefly that at their last
meeting Severyn had declared his love for her.
What Severyn remembered was that she had
refused it. The long inactive hours of illness
had kept him face to face with his own position.
He understood by this time the meaning of her
words about a stronger affection and other ties ;
and of Allison's loyalty he was absolutely sure ;

276 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

but in the bottom of his heart a pang lingered.
Since Camilla, admittedly, did not love himself,
why should she not incline to Allison ? He
ranked the Englishman on a level higher than
his own, and told himself quietly and sadly that
the preference would be natural. What he did
not and could not admit was that Allison loved
her so well. His own part was clear enough —
the thankless part of the calm and kind old
friend who makes no personal claims.

Camilla came in and found him with a draw-
ing-book before him. He closed it, leaving the
pencil between the leaves, and she saw with
pleasure that he was able to stand up and to
move forward a chair for her. Her new shy*
ness made it difficult to ask the questions whose
answers she longed to hear. It was he who
spoke first with some diffidence.

"You must forgive me for having come to
know what you did not wish me to be told —
the reason of your leaving England."

41 Mr. Allison, I suppose "

11 No, I learned it another way." He paused
an instant, and added generously* " I think he
wanted very much to tell me, but foe kept his
promise to you. About that plot — I don't
know how to say it to you. I am afraid I
shall hurt you. You were mistaken about it."

Camilla drew her hands together.

"JOURNEYS END- " 277

"You mean — have they done something vio-
lent — something desperate ? "

" No, no, not that at all ; but you were de-
ceived. The whole thing was a deception — a
trap prepared for you. There never was any
real plot at all."

He spoke slowly, clause by clause, feeling
each a separate cruelty.

" No plot — I don't understand "

11 This man, Raniero " — he opened the draw-
ing-book and showed her the head which he
had drawn — "was the emissary not of any
political party, but of the marquis, your cousin
— of the marquis and Menosotti."

Camilla gave a cry of horror, and clasped
her hands over her face. The foundations
crumbled about her feet; she saw herself a
toy passed from one unworthy hand to another.

As for Severyn, the intensity of his pain for
her rendered him absolutely dumb. To speak
moderately was for the moment beyond him,
and to speak as he felt would be to show her
yet another trust ill founded.

His silence, as she recognized it, made the
final drop in her misery more bitter even than
the thought of having been duped by Meno-
sotti.

The tension of the pause grew unendurable.
Something had to be said.

278 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" It was Menosotti himself who confessed it
to me."

She dropped her hands and turned to him.

" To you ? You made him ? "

" Yes."

" Then it was he ? " Her hand sketched

the gesture of a blow.

" Yes, but that was no matter."

She leaned back, very pale.

" Dear Camilla, don't think too much of it
all. The honest are always liable to the pit-
falls of the false. You knew what Menosotti
was before. It makes no difference really."

11 1 knew what he was, yes. I did not know
what I was. That is the difference." Her lips
shook. " And my folly has come near to killing
you."

11 Not at all. He was a clumsy fellow, who
did not know his business."

She bent her head forward, her eyelids down,
her lips pressed together ; all at once he saw a
tear fall. He remembered suddenly how he
had found her once as a little girl, weeping
alone in a corner, and had sat down by her,
taken her into an encircling arm and comforted
her; he recalled the feeling of a wet curl
pressed uncomfortably against his cheek, and
his superior, dispassionate sympathy, as a lad
of fourteen for the child of eleven. The

" JOURNEYS END " 279

Severyn of nine years ago seemed to laugh
at him over Camilla's head.
. He laid a hand quietly on hers and said,
very much in the tone of that other Severyn,
" Don't cry, dear. Other people's doings don't
really matter, you know."

She looked up at him with tears in her eyes,,
and with an appeal there too.

"I should think you wish you had never
seen me," she cried.

It was the cry of her longing for some per-
sonal assurance, the invitation which a man
more indifferent might have understood.

He set his teeth hard for a moment, and then
said almost stolidly, " No, I don't wish that"

The strain upon his strength, impaired al-
ready not only by ten days of illness and a
month of wearing anxiety, but also by the joy-
ful shock of her reappearance, was beginning
to grow insupportable. His consciousness
began to settle into a blind wish that she would
go and leave him ; his breath seemed to lift a
weight of lead.

She, with the burden of her own disappoint-
ment upon her, and with an eager longing to
have no disguise between them, persisted, " Mr.
Allison warned me, but I would not under-
stand. I thought myself so wise ; I was so
ready to believe what flattered me. And that's

280 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

not all; not the worst. The marquis — there
were times, Severyn, when I nearly gave way
to him. It was like a kind of madness — and I
knew all the time "

Her voice failed. For a moment she felt
his hand tighten upon hers, then he flung it
violently from him, and sprang up with an
angry cry of two or three words in his own
seldom-used native tongue ; it sounded like a
cry of execration; it was certainly a cry oi
passion.

She sat gazing at him wide-eyed, open-
mouthed, a deep throb of answering emotion
in her heart. She only half comprehended,
even now, the stab she had dealt or the wild
tumult of raging jealousy before which his last
barrier of self-control had gone down. As for
her, opposing currents broke over her and
mingled into one irresistible stream. Out of
the vague, bruised pain of seeing him lost to
her, of seeing him hurt by her, out of the sud-
denly rising flood of her own feeling, came the
overmastering impulse to speak the full truth
from the bottom of her heart, and let come what
might She, too, stood up.

" I had to tell you. I hated him all the time ;
I did ; but it was so. And it was being there,
hearing him, that made me know the differ-
ence."

«

JOURNEYS END " 281.

He stood, deathly pale, with brightening
eyes, looking at her, trembling.

11 1 was blind, I did not understand before ;
but then I knew ; and the thought of you was
like home."

The irradiation of his face, before his
embrace eclipsed it, was like the lifting of a
mist. In an instant she had passed from the
throb that started at a face she had never seen,
to the recognition so deep that it feels, not like
acquisition, but like recovery.

11 1 thought you had left off caring."

" I shall leave off caring in my grave, per-
haps; not sooner."

The space seemed long before he spoke
again. Perhaps it was two minutes. It was
long enough for the new relation to have made
itself the oldest fact in the universe, long enough
too for Severyn to see beyond the mist of his
own pain the true character of her avowal.

" Not one woman in a thousand would have
had the candour to tell me that"

She gave a quick breath that was almost a
sob. The words were sweeter to her even than
the previous assurance.

The withdrawing wave of his angry jealousy
left one last stone.

" If you had — given way, I should have
killed him."

282 THE PURSUIT OF CAMILLA

" No, I should ; I knew that all the time/'

She paused a moment, even in the midst of
her own content, and leaning backward so that
she could look up at him, "I suppose/ 1 she
said, " that is the punishment of that sort of
man — that nobody can love him without an
undercurrent "

Severyn did not ask the obvious question,
11 Is there an undercurrent here?" He stood
looking down into the absolutely honest blue
eyes, whose trust was as entire as his own.

The dinner that evening in Madame Bioletti's
dining-room was a mere cat's cradle of crossing
plans. Everybody's schemes which had stood
in abeyance were set free by the return of
Camilla. Karol must go back to Rome.
Guendolen was going for a fortnight to Paris
with Madame Bioletti. Camilla would remain
here until Severyn was well.

" And I/' said Allison, quite cheerfully, but
with a slight pallor and rigidity of countenance,
"shall look up a few more cathedrals."

There was a momentary silence, which
Madame Perivier adroitly broke. Perhaps
Camilla was the only person present who had
no suspicion what the pursuit of her had cost
him.

Butlor A Tanner, The Selwood fruiting Works, Froxne, and London.

MESSRS. C. ARTHUR PEARSON'S
WHEN ROGUES FALL OUT.

By Joseph Hatton, Author of " By Order of the Czar," etc.

SIR PATRICK: THE PUD DOCK.

By L. B. Walford, Author of "The Archdeacon," " Mr. Smith," etc.

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KETTLE.

By C. J. Cutcliffb Hyne. Illustrated by Stanley L. Wood.

SIQNORS OF THE NIGHT.

By Max Pemberton, Author of "The Phantom Army," etc. Illustrated by
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A MAID OF THE MOOR.

By Mrs. M. E. Stevenson, Author of " The Romance of a Grouse Moor/' etc.

A BITTER VINTAGE.

By K. Douglas King, Author of " The Scripture Reader of St. Mark's/' etc.

THE DREGS OF WRATH.

By Walter E. Grog an, Author of " The Adventures of a War Correspondent."

THE RED MEN OF THE DUSK.

By John Finnemore, Author of " The Custom of the Country/' etc Illus-
trated by Lawson Wood.

HERONFORD.

By S. R. Keightley, Author of "The Silver Cross," etc.

PHARAOH'S BROKER.

Being the Remarkable Experiences in another world of Isidor Werner. (Written by
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PHIL OF THE HEATH.

By Harold Child.

ROBESPIERRE.

Victorien Sardou's Play. Novelised and Adapted by Ange Galdemar With
Cover Design by M. Sardou.

A LEGACY OF HATE.

By Theo. Douglas, Author of " Behind a Mask," " Bride Elect/' " Carr ot
Dimscaur," etc.

THE ROSE OF JUDAH.

A Tale of the Captivity. By George Griffith, Author of " Angel of the
Revolution/' " Valdar," etc. Illustrated by H. Piffard.

MR. JACK HAMLIN'S MEDIATION, and Other Stories.

By Bret Hartb, Author of " Stories in Light and Shadow," etc.

GHOSTS : Being the Experiences of Flaxman Low.

By K. & Hesketh Pritchard (E. & H. Heron), Authors of " Tammer's
Duel/' etc. Illustrated by B. E. Minns.

LONDON
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MESSRS. C. ARTHUR PEARSON'S

LIST OF

popular Sfy-Sbfllfng novels.

ATHELSTANB FORD.

By Allen Upward.

THE VIBART AFFAIR.

By G. Manvillk Fenn.

THE NEWSPAPER GIRL.

By Mrs. C. N. Williamson, Author of " Fortune's Sport," '' A Woman in
Giey," etc

TRANSGRESSION.

By S. S. Thorburn, Bengal Civil Service, Author of " Asiatic Neighbours,"
" Her Majesty's Greatest Subject," etc

STORIES IN LIGHT AND SHADOW.

By Bret Harte, Author of " Tales of the Pacific Slope," etc

A STRANGE EXECUTOR.

By Bennett Coll, Author of " My Churchwardens," etc.

THE HERMITS OF GRAY'S INN.

By G. B. Burgin, Author of " Settled out of Court," " Fortune's Footballs,"
etc Illustrated by A. Kemp Tebby.

FORTUNE'S MY FOE.

By J. Bloundelle Burton, Author of " In the Day of Adversity," etc

A MILLIONAIRE'S DAUGHTER.

By Percy White, Author of " Mr. Bailey Martin," etc.

FRANCIS, THE VALET.

By G. W. Appleton, Author of " The Cc-Respondent," etc

ROSALBA.

By Olive Pratt Rayner, Author of " The Typewriter Girl."

THE KNIGHT OF " KING'S GUARD."

By Ewan Martin.

AT A WINTER'S FIRE.

By Bernard Capes, Author of "The Lake of Wine," etc

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE.

By G. H. Thornhill.

CALUMNIES.

By E. M. Davy, Author of "A Prince of Como," "Jack Dudley's Wife," etc

,4

LONDON
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MESSRS. C ARTHUR PEARSON'S

LIST OF

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HAQAR OF HOMERTON.

By Mrs. Henry E. Dudenby, Author of "A Man with a Maid."

THE VIRGIN OP THE SUN : A Tale of the Conquest

of Peru.

By George Griffith, Author of " Valdar- the Oft-Born," etc With Frontis-
piece by Stanley L. Wood.

VALDAR— THE OFT-BORN : A Saga of Seven Ages.

By George Griffith, Author of " The Angel of the Revolution," etc Illus-
trated by Harold Piffard.

THE HOPE OF THE FAMILY.

By Alphonse Daudet. Translated by Levin Carnac.

LADY JEZEBEL.

By Fergus Hume, Author of " The Mystery of a Hansom Cab."

THE KEEPERS OF THE PEOPLE.

By Edgar Jbpson, Author of " Sybil Falcon," " The Passion for Romance."

THE SHROUDED FACE.

By Owen Rhoscomyl, Author of " Battlement and Tower, " The Jewel of
Ynys Galon."

A MAORI MAID.

By H. B. Vogel.

THE MASTER-KEY.

By Florence Warden, Author of " The House on the Marsh."

THE AMERICAN EMPEROR.

By Louis Tracy, Author of "The Final War." Sixteen full-page Illustrations.

THE LOST PROVINCES.

By Louis Tracy, Author of " The Final War," etc. Illustrated by H. Piffard
(Sequel to " The American Emperor.")

THE FINAL WAR: A Story of the Great Betrayal.

By Louis Tracy. Illustrated by Ernest F. Shbrib.

THE RAID OF THE " DETRIMENTAL.' '

By the Earl of Desart.

THE ZONE OF FIRE.

By Headon Hill, Author of " Guilty Gold."

GUILTY GOLD : A Romance of Financial Fraud and City

Crime.

By Headon Hill, Author of " The Zone of Fire."

LONDON
C. ARTHUR PEARSON LIMITED, Henrietta Street, W.C.

MESSRS. C. ARTHUR PEARSON'S

LIST OF

popular Sfy^SbiUina Hovels,

THE ARCHDEACON.

By L. B. Walford, Author of " Mr. Smith," etc.

THE LITTLE LEGACY, and Other Stories.

By L. B. Walford, Author of " Mr. Smith," " The Archdeacon, etc

THE ADVENTURES OP CAPTAIN KETTLE.

By C I. Cutcliffe Hynb, Author of " The ' Paradise ' Coal Boat," etc. Illus-
trated by Stanlsy L. Wooo.

THE PHANTOM ARMY.

By Max Pemberton, Author of " Queen of the Jesters," etc

SETTLED OUT OP COURT.

By G. B. Burgin, Author of " Fortune's Footballs," etc

BROTHERS OP THE PEOPLE.

By Frsd Whishaw, Author of "A Russian Vagabond," etc.

THE KNIGHT OP THE GOLDEN CHAIN.

By R. D. Chetwode, Author of "John of Strathbourne."

THE KEY OP THE HOLY HOUSE.

By Albert Lee, Author of " The Black Disc," etc.

THE SEED OP THE POPPY.

By Clivb Holland, Author of "An Egyptian Coquette," etc

THE MEMBER'S WIFE.

By the Hon. Mrs. Chetwynd, Author of " A Brilliant Woman/ " A Dutch
Cousin," etc

FORTUNE'S SPORT*

By Mrs. C. N. Williamson, Author of" The Barn Stormers," etc

THE OPTIMIST.

By Herbert Morrah, Author of "The Faithful City," etc.

MORD EM'LY.

By W. Pett Ridge, Author of " Three Women and Mr. Frank CardwelL"

THE INCIDENTAL BISHOP.

By Grant Allen, Author of " What's Bred in the Bone," etc

THE REV. ANNABEL LEE.

By Robert Buchanan, Author of " God and the Man."

LONDON
C. ARTHUR PEARSON LIMITED, Henrietta Street, W.€.

A SELECTION FROM

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POPULAR 3/6 NOVELS.

FORTUNE'S FOOTBALLS.

By G. B. Burgin, Author of "The Hermits of Gray's Inn," "Settled out of
Court," etc

HANDS IN THE DARKNESS.

By Arnold Golsworthy.

THE TYPEWRITER GIRL.

By Olive Pratt Rayner.

HER ROYAL HIGH NESS'S LOVE AFFAIR.

By J. Maclaren Cobban, Author of "The Cure of Souls," etc.

THE IRON CROSS.

By R. H. Sherard, Author of " Rogues, * etc.

THE DUKE AND THE DAMSEL

By Richard Marsh, Author of " The Beetle," etc.

THE MYSTERY OF THE "MEDEA."

By Alexander Vaughan.

THREE WOMEN AND MR. FRANK CARDWELL.

By W. Pett Ridge, Author of "A Clever Wife."

LUCKY BARGEE.

By Harry Lander, Author of "Weighed in the Balance," etc.

A BROKEN PROMISE.

By Violet Whytb.

THE EMPEROR'S CANDLESTICKS.

By Baroness Emmuska Orczy.

MY DEAR SIR!

By Harry B. Vogel, Author of " A Maori Maid," etc

THE SHADOW OF THE BEAR.

By Headon Hill, Author of " The Zone of Fire,'' " Guilty Gold," etc.

THOU SHALT NOT-^-

By Stanton Morich. .

London : 17 & 18, Henrietta Street, W.C.

A SELECTION FROM

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QUEEN OF THE JESTERS.

By Max Pbmbbrton, Auth
Illustrations by H. Piffard.

By Max Pbmbbrton, Author of " Kronstadt," etc, etc With eight full-page
"llu * - — —

•

t

I

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TANDRA.

By Andrew Quantock. With Frontispiece by Lawson Wood.

KNAVE5 OP DIAMONDS.

Being Tales of the Mine and Veld. By George Griffith, Author of " Virgin
of the Sun," " Valdar," etc. Illustrated by £. F. Sherie.

WHEN THE BIRDS BEGIN TO SING.

By Winifred Graham, Author of "Meresia." With sixteen Illustrations <

by Harold Piffard. i

JOCK'S WARD. i

By Mrs. Herbert Martin, Author of "Gentleman George," "A Low-born |

Lass," etc. '

JOHN OP STRATHBOURNE.

A Romance of the Days of Francis I. By R. D. Chetwoi/b, Author
of " The Knight of the Golden Chain." Illustrated by Ernest Smyths,

THE MARQUIS OP VALROSE.

From the French of Charles Foley. Translated by Alys Hallard.

A PAUPER MILLIONAIRE.

By Austin Fryers.

THE INVISIBLE MAN.

By H. G. Wells, Author of " The Time Machine," etc. Second Edition,

SPIES OF THE WIQHT.

By Hbadon Hill, Author of "The Zone of Fire/' etc.

THE SKIPPER'S WOOING and THE BROWN MAN'S

SERVANT.

By W. W. Jacobs, Author of " Many Cargoes." Second Edition.

London : 17 & 18, Henrietta Street, W.C.

<

C.I

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